


Vicissitude

by Messiah



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Food Issues, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-08-10 10:52:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 48,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7841920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messiah/pseuds/Messiah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Steve were a balloon, seeing Bucky wear the familiar star-spangled uniform was the needle that sent him deflating across the room. He couldn’t explain the ache in his chest or the ice in his stomach or why the smile he pushed onto his lips felt like a too tight sweater. </p><p>A story about sand monsters, masked terrorists and alien bullets that would make any supermodel jealous. Not that Steve was aiming to fit into a Victoria Secret bikini anytime soon, but the fact still remained. Just like the fact that Steve found himself back where he started seventy years ago: small, sick and with Bucky finishing his fights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude: Freezer Burn

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a regular updater, but I try my best. If you want me to post quicker, you can come and hound my ass on [tumblr](http://ohmymessiah.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> A huge thanks goes to [Anja](http://gassadaarts.tumblr.com/) for making two absolutely amazing fan art pieces for this story, check them out [right here](http://gassadaarts.tumblr.com/post/149664454692/vicissitude-and-envy-painted-for-vicissitude). Do yourself a favor and click on that link. Like it, reblog it, love it. 
> 
> Don't forget to subscribe.

_Autumn 2014_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside, the afternoon air was crisp with the promise of winter.

They were back in Brooklyn. On the other side of the window glass, nothing was the same to Steve. Their old neighborhood was different, taller and louder in a way that scared away the feeling of home. Most days, it was hard to believe that he had been in the ice long enough for them to win the war; go to the moon; welcome a new century. But going back home grounded him, reminded him all over again of how much he had missed during all those years spent in that cold, lonely grave in the middle of nowhere.  

“I have a hard time seeing him go through security with that arm,” Sam said from across the table. They were at a quiet pizza place on the same street he and Bucky had crossed every day on their way to school. Seventy years ago, this place had been a barber shop.

“He could’ve gone to Canada,” Steve replied, looking back at him. “Or Mexico.”

Sam nodded and raised his drink. “Could’ve,” he said flatly before taking a sip.

For two months they had pulled pointers from Natasha’s file. Problem was, the dossier was as old as it smelled. Many of the places mentioned were either echoing in their wait or overseas, far from their reach. It wasn’t money that stopped Steve from packing a bag and hopping on the next plane, but the expectations tied to his name. They had both paused their lives, but they couldn’t do that forever.

The ice cubes jiggled as Sam put down his glass, concern pulling on his face and voice alike. He leaned back, chair creaking as he crossed his arms over his chest, head cocking to the side. There was a pause and then he asked, “You okay with this?”

Steve nodded slowly as he took off his glasses, reaching down to the hem of his shirt to polish them. “Yeah,” he said.

“You know.” A veil of severity covered Sam’s face, putting the emotion–the sincerity in his voice. “I meant what I said earlier.”

Steve pursed his lips as he rubbed harder on a greasy stain on the glass. He thought about it, weighing the pros and the cons, estimating the risk of letting Sam fly solo and more importantly–was it worth it?

Even though they had reached the end of the dossier several times over, they still had nothing. They had walked into dead end after dead end, backtracked every location twice and now they were just grasping for straws, going back to places Steve thought Bucky might return to if he remembered who he was.

Steve put on his glasses again and looked up at Sam. “You sure?”

“Positive,” Sam said with a nod.

“Okay.” Whatever tension that lined Steve’s lips dissolved and he managed a small smile, head bobbing up and down. “It means a lot, but I need you to be careful though, if he’s anything like—”

“ _Dude_ ,” Sam cut him off, shaking his head in disbelief, one corner of his lips slightly raised. “I know. I’ll be careful.”

Steve’s smile grew into a lopsided one. “Okay,” he said, gaze already wandering out the window again. “Good.”

Ever since the day on the bridge, Steve had been losing sleep. All the nights spent of twisting and turning in bed appeared on his face: the dark half-moons beneath his eyes, the three-day old stubble, the sunken-in cheeks. It was as if the world had paled into the cold 1944 that he had left behind in anger and pain. Back then, he had crushed more windpipes and broken more bones than any history book had dared to account for, and if the rest of the Howlies had thought it to be a poor, pitiful attempt to retrieve that part of him that never made it off that train, they had never breathed a word about it.

A lifetime later and that piece, forever gone but never forgotten, had found him having ricocheted through time and space. When that mask had come off and their eyes locked, sixty-odd years of momentum had collided with Steve’s chest.  The sharp piece had penetrated skin, flesh and bone like a hot knife through butter, lodging itself between his heart and spine. The pressure had sent him curling inwards, all tense muscles and sharp breaths, and that had been enough to hollow him out, leaving a shell of the person he had been the moment before.

Gazing back, Steve had been convinced by the pain for a weak minute that Bucky had actually pulled the trigger. Because what else could the lump in his chest be, if not a big, nasty clot of blood?

“You ready to leave?”

“Huh? Oh—yeah.” Steve blinked back into reality, watching as Sam put down his phone and got up, reaching for his jacket hung on the back of the chair.

“With this traffic, it might take us an hour to get to JFK.”

“Yeah.” Steve took a deep breath as he looked around. The restaurant stood almost forlorn, the staff behind the counter gone. The pizza on the plate before him was cold and half-eaten. “Let’s go.”

After months of nothing, this was it. Steve was at the end of his rope and this was just something he had to do before hitting the play button again; before he could go back and pick up the shield. This was for himself, a way of reminding himself that he had done everything within his powers to find Bucky.

There was something in his gut that told him that Bucky couldn’t have gotten far, not with that shining thing on his arm, but the not knowing sickened Steve to his very core. By now, the inward curl of his shoulders had almost grown permanent. There was a chill in his body that couldn’t be stilled no matter how many layers of clothes he donned; no amount of sleep would wash away the dark bruising beneath his eyes.

This last trip was his way to convince himself that he wasn’t insane. That everything that had gone down with SHIELD, Project Insight, the Winter Soldier – that was what had happened, it was real. It wasn’t the accumulation of years of suppressed grief catching up on him.

This was just something he had to do. But unlike before, Steve didn’t have any expectations for where they were going – not like when they had approached every location drawn from Natasha’s file. He had been a fool and hoped for the impossible, only to leave with his knuckles white, ready to fight for someone who wasn’t there.

Three hours later, when Steve rubbed shoulders with Sam who fussed over economy class, Steve told himself that this wasn’t the end of the line–he would find Bucky, just maybe not today or tomorrow or even next week.

 

* * *

 

A flight, a sleepless night and a six-hour bike ride later, and they were there. In the middle of nowhere, accompanied by nothing but the brisk autumn wind, the grey sky and the tall alps. It was just the two of them, breathing fresh air and drinking in a view that was postcard worthy.

“So this is the place?” Sam asked after they had killed the engines and climbed off their bikes. The track beneath their boots was overgrown, the wooden planks of the rail green and slippery after today’s downfall.

“Yeah,” Steve replied as he hung the helmet on the bike’s handle and approached the steep edge in a few long, measured steps. He ignored the way his stomach rolled. “This is the place.”

Sam shuffled closer to the edge, weight kept on the foot farthest from the edge as he slightly leaned forward before leaning back just as quick, shaking his head with a whistle. “That’s a long-ass fall.”

Steve nodded stiffly, throat cording from the sheer effort to not huff out a sob. Because that was what he felt like doing, crying until he was nothing but a puddle left on the ground.

Below them was a sea of red and black, the river running like a dark vein through the color.

“I always planned on coming back,” Steve confessed after the wind stopped howling; the hard lines on his face betraying the neutral tone of his voice. The tense jaw; the heavy frown. He looked at Sam, who looked at him. “I couldn’t stand the thought of him rotting here, in the middle of nowhere.”

Sam laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He smiled a smile of sympathy, small and wary. “It might be in the middle of nowhere,” he agreed wistfully. “But it’s damn pretty.”

There was snow on the mountain tops poking through the grey above their heads. The last time he had been here, Steve hadn’t given the view any thought. It had been cold and miserable, the thick snow blurring everything into one giant entity. Had they come a month later and in the blossom of winter, everything would probably have looked like it did seventy years ago.

Muted by the agony of being back at the place where it all started, Steve gave another terse nod. He stepped back with a sigh, fingers carding back his hair before he picked up the helmet from the handlebar. He cleared his throat said, “We should hurry. See if we can get down there before it gets dark.”

“Alright.” Sam gave him a look and then turned back to the view. “Imagine if I had my wings though,” he said, spreading his arms like in that romantic movie Steve had seen on the flight there. “It would be a nice drop.”

“You’ll have to boot Stark’s ass,” Steve said with a small smile. “Have him change his priorities.”

“I should do that,” Sam agreed with a grin, stepping away from the edge and toward his bike, picking up the helmet. “What does that dude even do all day? Pick bellybutton lint?”

Steve snorted and shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”

They buckled up and continued down the abandoned tracks, pacing their speed and keeping an eye out for a way down the valley below. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they found a place where the edge wasn’t a dead steep, but had a nice gradual slope down to the river below. They parked their bikes, left their helmets and descended down the slant, zigzagging their way down the hill, always keeping a hand on a tree.

By the time they were down by the river, both of them were a bit rosy on the cheeks. Judging by the distance as Steve looked up from where they came, they must have covered at least a few hundred meters of slippery terrain. The mud stains on their pants were enough evidence of any close calls.

“It’s this way,” Steve said and nodded upstream. Around them, the sound of rushing water sang with the yowl of the wind, the rustle of the dying leaves. The vegetation was thick, the ground beneath their boots wet and uneven. So they walked slowly, minding their steps and kept as close to the river as the nature willed.

“You know,” Sam began, his breath slightly labored. “I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“Yeah?”

“You and Bucky, you must have been pretty close.”

Steve dodged a low-hanging branch, holding it in place so it wouldn’t swat Sam in the face as he passed. “Yeah—I mean, we grew up together,” Steve said easily. “It was a tough time to be a kid.”

“I can imagine,” Sam said, grabbing the branch and went on. “But what I mean is… How _close_ were you?”

“I had Peggy,” Steve replied, shrugging as he continued, rounding a big block. “And Bucky had his dames.”

“Dames, huh?” Sam snorted and from the sound of it, he was grinning like a fool.

“Yeah… but Bucky and I we were—we were still pretty close.”

“You’re being very cryptic man, give me something solid.” Steve didn’t even have to glance over his shoulder to see Sam’s growing smile, he heard it; the light tone of his voice.

“We you know…” Steve felt his heart hammer up all the blood to his face. There was a part of him that recognized the need for honesty, because this was Sam asking and he deserved the truth after these last few crazy months of ghost hunting. But then there was the fear—irrelevant at best and silly at worst, out of time and out of place; just there, tempting him with the lie.

But this was Sam, he would understand.

“You what?”

“We were—” Steve made a small, helpless gesture to the greenery before him, tongue darting out to wet his dry lips. “— _intimate_.” He glanced back at Sam, who looked at him with a smug expression, eyebrows curiously raised; smile so, so wide like he had figured it out long ago.

“First off, I’m not judging you. Remember, this is the future,” Sam countered and Steve couldn’t help but to chuckle, a tiny bit of tension easing off his shoulders. “Second, so you were fuck buddies during the war? Now it’s starting to make a lot more sense as to why you so desperately want to find this metal armed maniac.”  

Steve beamed, feeling the way the heat reached all the way up to the tips of his ears. “We didn’t get together during the war because it was lonely behind enemy lines, it started before that.”

“Really? When?”

Steve inhaled a big breath, attempting to suppress that smile that made his cheeks hurt, only to fail. “I was fourteen, he was fifteen and we got piss drunk one summer night,” he said, chuckling at the end. “We stole his dad’s whiskey and sat down on the roof of my apartment building because it was the only place in the entire city where the wind was still blowing.”

“So you needed some Dutch courage to do the deed?” Sam mused.

“Yeah—or no, not like _that_ — I mean,” Steve fuddled, smile growing sheepish. “I just kissed him, and that was just… it.”

“That was it?” Sam asked, eyebrows probably battling his hairline judging from his voice. “No hands down each others pants, nothing like that?”

Steve snorted, feeling the heat come over his face once more. “Okay,” he confessed. “Maybe there was a little bit of that as well.” His smile calmed, settling into a tame curve. “But both us knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that we could grow old together though, so we didn’t really talk about what we were doing. I just told him that I liked him, and he said the same thing to me.”

“At least that was something, right?”

“Yeah.” Steve looked over and saw how Sam’s smile had weaned into an rueful line. “I was happy with what we had, and I think he was, too. You know, being together when we weren’t dating others—or more like… when Bucky dated others. I wasn’t exactly someone the girls chased after back in the days.”

“That must have been like hell,” Sam said, sounding almost sorry. “To see him with others.”

“I won’t lie,” Steve said, “I was pretty jealous. And looking back, I think I always envied Bucky. He had it all, you know?”

 

* * *

 

Four days later, and they were stateside again.

Steve wasn’t disappointed – he told himself that he wasn’t; that he was okay with finding nothing yet again. He had gone back, fulfilled a promise that had been left hanging for seventy years and that was fine. Returning to the place where it had all started had been like cleaning out an infected wound. It had hurt, but soon it would heal. Only to leave a nasty scar.

“That was it,” Sam said from the driver seat. He killed the engine and pulled the handbrake.

Steve sighed, nodding softly as he agreed, “That was it.”

Sam put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a good, comforting squeeze. “He’s gonna turn up, you know, sooner or later.”

“I hope so,” Steve said as he turned to Sam, looking him in the eye. He managed a small smile, only to watch Sam mirror it perfectly.  “Thank you for coming along; for everything.”

“Anytime man, anytime.”

Wherever Bucky was, he was living up to his ghost story.

 

* * *

 

After SHIELD, there was the Avengers and the curious case of Loki’s missing staff. Steve packed a bag, left the DC apartment in a jungle of moving boxes and went back to his roots. He allowed himself to be collected into Stark’s tower of superheroes, because why not? To be among friends again did him good, to be around people who cared about why he hadn’t shaved for a few days or commented on why the hell he looked like death warmed over. Friends who distracted him in the best of ways: muffins for breakfast at noon after a long morning full of digging their way through intel; friends who liked to celebrate even the slightest of progress with movies, pizza and on the rare occasion, by going clubbing.

A month of that, Steve was getting better and in the meantime, Sam stayed true to his word; pulling on all kinds of strings, calling hospitals for John Does, checking police reports, reading the dossier from back to front, doing what they had done for two months straight. He texted daily, called every other day and on the weekends, he made the four-hour drive to New York and updated Steve in person.

In the end, Steve was certain that Tony took pity on Sam for chasing after a lost cause, which was probably why he worked his rapid-fire magic and offered free lodgings in exchange for some bragging rights.

Not even a week after Tony had started calling himself exotic bird collector, Stark had finally put the finishing touches on the new wings and together they presented them to Sam with an invitation to join the family.

“Do you want to head up to DC later today?” Sam asked one day after their morning run. “I have to pick up a few more boxes at my house, thought you’d like to do the same.”

“Sure,” Steve said, wiping sweat from his brow. “I can come along.”

It was Sunday and while superheroes technically didn’t have days off, they had days where there wasn’t particularly much to do. Days where there was enough time to deal with personal priorities for once.

They ate an early dinner in the car consisting of ridiculously expensive coffee and glazed donuts. They talked about anything but Bucky during the ride and instead Sam talked eagerly about everything Steve had missed out on, anything from sports to historic events to movies; about Stark and Natasha and how he had been longing to move back to New York. About how he was scared and excited all at the same time about everything and what it meant to be an Avenger. In the end, Steve clapped him on the shoulder and told him he would do fine, because he would.

“I’ve actually watched Game of Thrones,” Steve said as they climbed the stairs in his apartment building, continuing their chat started in the car.

“Really?”

“Yeah, the first season.”

“And did you like it?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, shrugging. “There’s just a lot of…”

“Boobs?” Sam suggested with an amused quirk of his brow.

Steve suppressed a smile as he pulled out his keys. “That, yeah. But I was going to say political play.”

“Politics and boobs sell,” Sam said, coming up behind him as Steve slid the key in place. He opened the door, held it open for Sam before heading in himself. The hallway was dark, narrowed by the moving boxes stacked high.

“You know, what you’re—”

Steve quickly raised his hand, shutting Sam up. A cold breeze travelled down the hallway, raising the hair on the back of Steve’s neck. From where they were standing on the doormat, they stared right into the shadows of the living room and right before them, the window was wide open; the night breeze toying with the pale curtain.

He looked at Sam, who gave him a terse nod and a look that said, _I’m right behind you._

Steve moved first, taking a few quiet steps down the hallway, scouting the shadows ahead and as he neared the kitchen to his right, he leaned forward just enough to peek inside. There was water on the floor and _—_

_—_ there was a moment where it felt as if the stars aligned, the planets convened and the skies opened. A moment where Steve let all the tension drain from his shoulders, because that was _Bucky_ on his kitchen floor, sitting by the open freezer, looking back at him like a deer caught in the headlights. A little thicker than back in the days, hair long and matted, chin and cheek covered in a week worth of scruff, but still the same kid that had lived just down the street.

As Steve saw the surprise bloom on Bucky’s face, with the way his eyebrows sluggishly stretched toward his hairline, widening his eyes as his mouth fell open, Steve thought he saw recognition. The possibility of Bucky remembering everything – _anything_ tugged on the knot in his chest, the bittersweet ache anchoring him in the moment.

Stunned into a long, aimless silence, Steve let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding as he took a step forward, over the threshold and into the kitchen. The back of his eyes stung, the weight in his chest expanding. He only noticed Sam when a hand landed heavy on his shoulder, grounding him. But not even his touch was enough for Steve to look away.

“Buck,” Steve said, somehow managing a calm, even tone. “We’ve been looking for you.”

Bucky nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down before his lips parted and _—_ “I know,” he whispered.

He sat with his knees under him, his denim trousers dark with damp, the front of his torso exposed in the cold kitchen air by the unzipped hoodie. Even in the poor, stale lighting spilling from the freezer, Steve saw that the last two months had been equally cruel to Bucky. From where he sat, with his right side facing them and his left arm shoved in the freezer, he looked broken.

Two months ago, Steve had waged a war and as always, war taught you things. Knowledge transformed you, tinkered with the way you viewed the world, altered the way you moved – and change, change wasn’t always for the better. The old Steve, who had literally _killed_ for HYDRA since being defrosted like a piece of Thanksgiving turkey, would have walked right up to Bucky. But getting shot in the gut made you wary and because of that, Steve stayed in the doorway as if rooted to the floor.

Before the bridge, before the helicarrier, Steve knew that Bucky would never hurt him. If it wasn’t for the Russians—Hydra pulled him apart and put him together wrong, Steve knew that would never have changed. When he looked at Bucky – _Bucky_ who looked right back at him with a fever stricken gaze, forehead glistening as much as his eyes – Steve wanted to believe that this was the same man he had always leaned on for support; for love.

Back in the days, Winifred Barnes used to say that they would be joined by the hip until death did them apart. And funny enough, that was exactly what had happened. Fate dealing them a shitty hand, cleaving the whole into a half.

Between the two of them, Bucky had always been the first to do everything. The first of them to learn how to ride a bike, the first of them to break a bone, the first of them to kiss a girl. Bucky had always told him everything about anything and because of that, Steve always knew what to expect out of life. Things had always seemed a little more bearable and simple at the thought of Bucky doing something first. Because if Bucky could do it, why couldn’t Steve?

Up until a few months ago, Bucky had been the first of them to kick the bucket. In some sick, twisted way, Steve had thought of that, of how Bucky had been the first of them to die, as he crashed the Valkyrie into the Antarctic. Back then, the thought had almost been comforting, the idea of never making it to the age of twenty-seven didn’t seem so daunting knowing that Bucky had already blown out his last birthday candle.

“Are you hurt?” Steve asked. His heart thundered in his chest.

Bucky blinked once, eyebrows sinking to their normal longitude, resetting his face into something blank and unreadable.

“My… my arm,” Bucky began, sounding so small and weak and so _tired_. He looked like a horse rode hard and put away wet, sweat pouring through his pores and his lips blue in the pale freezer light. “It feels like it’s burning up.”

Steve sucked in a shaky breath and looked away, down at the floor and the way the water had made the joints swell. He felt awful for stalling, for not rushing to Bucky’s side, caution be damned. Because when Steve looked at Bucky, he saw the man whose worst fear had been that the army would get desperate enough to enlist Steve.

Steve saw his best friend, but he also saw someone who could seriously hurt him. The phantom pain lingering in his thigh, in his abdomen reminded him of that.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” Bucky whispered, pleading in a way that only twisted the knife in Steve’s chest.

Steve braced himself, glancing over his shoulder at Sam, who stood behind him like a shadow, silent; guarding.

“You sure about this?” asked Sam, quiet like a whisper.

“Yeah,” Steve said, his nod as frail as the breath he exhaled.

A moment passed and then he walked over, the sound of his footsteps seemed like the loudest thing in the world. He slowly sank down to his knees beside Bucky, allowing himself to be devoured by his orbit, to let the cold water on the floor soak into his jeans. The last time Steve had been this close, he had almost felt the molecules tremble around him. How Bucky had been drawn tight, much like a bowstring ready to launch an arrow.

“Do you remember me?”

Bucky nodded once, jaw set tight. “I remember.”

“Buck, I—”

“We stormed the beach of Normandy together,” Bucky interrupted quickly, his lower lip trembling. A few dark tresses fell before his face. “June 6th, 1944.”

Steve let out a shaky breath. His tongue felt big and dry in his mouth. “We– I— you, yeah.”

“I remember you being angry at me,” Bucky’s lips curled with the shadow of a smile, sluggish and small, but as he spoke it grew wide enough to show his teeth; enough to reach those gleaming blue eyes. Large enough until it wasn’t a shadow anymore. “The night before we were supposed to ship out.”

Steve saw that there was something crisp in the way Bucky moved, the way he talked. Up-close and through the front of the unzipped hoodie, Steve saw the bruising stretching from the myriad of scars were skin etched into metal; the black, scorched plates by his shoulder. No wonder there was no ice left in the freezer, only the bare racks and a whole lot of water ruining the parquet floor.

“You were angry because… I had been drinking so much that I could barely stand.”

“Yeah,” Steve breathed. His stomach dropped when the memory came galloping back, hitting him like a freight train. The smell of whiskey, the feel of warmth through fabric, the taste of tobacco—

“You called me stupid.”

“Because you were, getting hammered before a big day like that,” Steve said as he raised his hand to brush away a few dark curls from Bucky’s face. Fingers combing through the bird’s nest, fingernails scratching the warm scalp down toward his neck where his hand settled. Beneath his palm, Bucky was clammy and much like a cat, he arched into his touch, unraveling with a quiet whimper.

For a moment, the silence settled between them, their eyes locking. Steve breathed him in, ogling the matured lines of Bucky’s face. The smell of old sweat and dried blood and burnt electronics all tickled his nose as he sat this close to the man he had been ready to die for back in 1944. In a way, he had died for Bucky, leaving the life and love of that century the day he had crashed that plane.

Bucky breathed in and then out. “… I want to make things right.”

“You will,” Steve promised, thumb rubbing soothing circles on Bucky’s neck. “I’ll help you make everything right again, but I can’t do it here. Not with you having defrosted my entire freezer.”

Bucky took on a perplexed look, eyebrows crawling up as he looked back into the empty shelves of the freezer and then back at Steve. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding all too sure.

“Don’t be,” Steve said, smiling gently. “You can defrost my freezer anytime you want.”

Bucky huffed a breath, and smiled a tired smile as he closed his eyes. “Anytime?”

“Anytime,” Steve promised. He looked back over his shoulder toward Sam. “Could you grab a towel?”

“Yeah,” Sam said with a hard nod. He left and came back within a minute, a fresh towel in hand, handing it over to Steve. “We should call Tony.”

Steve’s knuckles whitened around the cloth as he looked Sam in the eye, jaw going tense. He turned back to Bucky, eyes skimming over the arm resting on the freezer rack. The sleeve of the hoodie was rolled up, exposing the charred, dented plates.

“How bad is it?” asked Steve.

“Bad.”

“Can you get up?”

Bucky shook his head weakly.

Steve swallowed with a nod before he looked back at Sam. “We should call Tony.”

 

* * *

 

Later in the car, Bucky was well and truly wrapped up like a Christmas present. In the rearview mirror, Steve saw Sam’s measured gaze looking back at them.

“I’ve texted Stark; he’s waiting for us at Dulles.”

Bucky perked up, brows furrowing like he suddenly didn’t understand. “Stark?” he asked, thinly.

There was a pregnant pause before Steve finally filled in the blank, heart beating in his throat. “Tony Stark,” he said and looked at Bucky, who looked back at him with his head tilted to the side, chapped lips parted, worry digging the hard line between his eyebrows deeper.

“Is he...” Bucky wetted his lips, swallowing as he took on a pinched look, “related to Howard Stark?”

“Yeah,” Steve said as if the wind had been punched out of him. “Yeah, he is.”


	2. Fallen Through Time

_Summer 2015_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was how Steve died.

On the floor, the smell of gunpowder burning hot through his nose as he stared up the barrel of the gun. It was black, just like everything after the bang.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then he woke up.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Steve felt was the pressure behind his eyes, the pain unfurling deep beneath the skin. Like his brain was growing by each and every hot pulse, angrily pressing against the inside of his skull. Then there was the heaviness. It was as if someone had hollowed him out, scooped out his entrails and poured lead into the soft shell that was left behind, leaving him stiff and still, unable to leave the ocean of warmth that was boiling him alive.

Everything came back to him in flashing images. Sudden and striking and starring himself, and that was odd; to watch himself from afar put on the helmet in the belly of the jet, the way he looked over at Bucky and gave an approving nod, catching a glimpse of that coy smile right before Bucky put on the mask, and then—then there was the smell. Pungent and crisp, like a steak left on the grill for too long—

—in his head, a gun went off. Loud and thundering and–

“Cap?”

“ _Steve_.”  

“Hey, you with us man?”

“Captain Rogers?”

—he opened his eyes. On the foot end of the bed, Steve saw Tony and Dr. Cho, and he only had to tilt his head slightly to the side to see that Sam and Bucky were to his left. All four of them looked like lost ships caught in a bad storm, hopefully searching the horizon for any sign of land.

That was when Steve realized he must have been staring. He blinked once, twice; tongue darting out to lick his cracked lips. There was a dryness in his mouth, his tongue felt like a dried up piece of leather, too big to even fit behind his teeth, leaving his jaw slack and lips parted. There was a low, wheezing sound and it took him a moment to realize that it came from him.

He shifted his breathing, inhaling deep through his nose, slow and deliberate just as if the extra oxygen would inflate him like a balloon and ease the burden on the bed, because right now it felt like there was nothing but a miracle holding it up.

“Steve?” Bucky said, eyes wide with worry; alert and aware and his voice was gentle, so gentle.

Steve cocked his head further to the side and looked him in the eye, lips pursing sluggishly as if effected by the shift. Smile coming on almost drunk looking, uncontrolled and mild.

And that was enough to break the ice. Whatever ballad any potential ghosts were looking to play on the tension building between them **,** was lost. Judging by the way Sam exhaled deeply and how his shoulders slumped, the air must have become breathable again.

Sam’s mouth twisted into a hesitant smile. “You’re awake,” he said.

In the narrow space between Bucky and Sam, a floor-to-ceiling window offered a view Steve had grown to recognize these past few months since the move from the city. In the far distance was the same grove of trees he could see from his own room, just at another angle. He was home—he was safe, but he was hurt. The rhythmic beeping in the background; the ache on the back of his hand; the pale walls of the sick room told him as much.

Steve tore his gaze from the sunshine and greenery, eyes wandering back along the four of them.

“You alright, bud?” asked Tony, head cautiously cocked to the side. He was dressed in a sharp three-piece suit, his tie a deep red. His face was as grave as the look he gave Steve, measuring and dreading all at the same time. Next to him, Helen wore the same white and blue outfit as any other day, the Avengers logo on her chest concealed by the journal clutched to her chest; her face guarded.

Sam looked like he had just come from the gym, all sweaty armpits and spotted clothes, and Bucky—Bucky looked like death warmed over. There were toothpaste stains by the neck of his shirt and he had his greasy hair pulled back in a loose bun. He didn’t even sport a stubble anymore, but a beard.

“Yeah,” Steve whispered, sounding nothing like himself; distantly wondering for how long he had been out. His gaze wandered to Tony and Sam, and then all the way back to Bucky again. Steve looked at him and for an aimless moment, Bucky just looked back at him. Those deep blues full of worry staring back at him as if he had seen a ghost; lips lined so tense that Steve thought his jaw might break any minute. His throat was corded as if he was holding back a sob.  

Steve swallowed and then again, and again. “What happened?” he asked and much like his mouth, even the skin on his face was so dry he could practically feel the number of wrinkles appearing as he frowned.

There was a long enough pause for Steve to figure out that something bad had happened, a moment where all four of them just stared back at him, like they were waiting each other out.

“You got shot,” came the reply from Sam.

“By some kind of foreign bullet,” Tony quickly filled in.

If Steve’s heart skipped a beat, the monitor detected it, stepping up its game. “A… what?”

Steve thought of Natasha, about soviet made slugs without rifling—but this wasn’t the same thing. Despite the cotton between his ears; despite the sweat soaking his skin beneath the blanket, a distant part of Steve knew that this was something else. The more he woke, the less it felt like a hangover. By now, it felt as if someone had stitched him up with a bunch of bees inside. His whole chest hot and stinging and burning. The smell of smoke tickled his nose, but the room was pristine; the air within clean.

“A foreign bullet of possible alien nature,” Tony clarified before he shrugged idly at Bucky. “Balto here saw it go down. He’s been pretty upset the last few days.”

It felt like the world suddenly tilted, but the bed didn’t slam against the nearest wall and the four of them still stood upright, watching like hooting owls.

The concept of an _alien_ _bullet_ rang oddly in Steve’s head, bizarre even. He had been at the wrong end of a gun before, but this felt nothing like it. Every muscle, every nerve, every cell in his body hurt. There was a sting beneath his skin, a hot prick all over his arms and leg, wet like his skin was coming off from the sheer heat.

Steve tasted bile in his mouth. He swallowed it back and sucked in a sour, shaky breath. “What happened to me?” he asked again, stronger this time.

There was nothing but the rapid beating of his heart filling the room.

Bucky ran a hand over his forehead, brushing back a few stray strands of hair. “You got shot,” he said, gaze dropping to the floor. “And I don’t know,” something haunted crossed his face and then he looked up again, voice chary. “I heard the gun go off and in the next… you were burning.”

“Burning?” Steve asked and for a short-lived moment, he was filled with the need to huff out a mirthless laugh, because wasn’t that a _great_ joke. Bucky’s voice bounced in his head like an echo, twisting and turning and sounding odder by each repeat.

Alien bullets that set people on fire.

Great joke.

But Bucky didn’t smile, or laugh, or said it was an elaborate prank. Steve’s heart dropped like a cold rock, crashing straight down into his stomach and then the rough, wheezing breaths came heavy past his lips. A full-body shiver locked his muscles tight, heart beating wild and then he tried to push himself upright, but couldn’t.

Steve mustered up what strength he had and lifted his head just enough to glance down his body. At the end of the bed, his feet peaked up, both of them and that—that was a good thing, good enough for him have a moment of clarity and focus on his breathing; in through his nose, out through his nose.

His left leg looked thicker—felt stiffer than the other, and it was only now that he caught on to the state of his arms resting above the blanket. From fingertips and all the way up to the sleeves of the hospital gown, was bandage. On his right arm there was a cast. But a second broken bone didn’t mess with his mind. It was the sight of his left that made his stomach roll because it looked _so_ small.

Thin, like whatever fire he had been exposed to had burned away the muscle and only left the bone.

“We don’t _really_ know what happened,” Tony corrected.

Dr. Cho clutched the cart closer to her chest. “Mr. Barnes statement is consistent with the injuries found. You currently have third degree burns on 20% of your body along with several comminuted fractures.”

Steve slowly raised his right arm, fearing the use of his left and reached for his face, fingers gliding over the dry skin of his nose, forehead and then up toward his scalp, expecting there to be nothing. But his fingers slid through the same, greasy locks. They felt longer somehow and nothing like the short, modern haircut.

Tony smiled a thin, reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, you still have your goldilocks.”

Steve paused as the cogs turned, frown deepening as he looked back at Helen. “If I caught fire,” he swallowed down what little saliva he had managed to work up, “why do I still have hair?”

“We don’t really know,” Dr. Cho confessed. “Our theory is that the compound of the bullet not only accelerated the healing effect of the serum for a short period of time, but it also stimulated every other cell division in your body. So when you were exposed to this… purple fire, allegedly started by the bullet itself, your body was already starting to heal the moment after the damage was done. This… chemical reaction shattered every bone in your body—you can almost say that it decompressed you in a way, along with your internal organs and muscles. But the serum saved you, and the fractures you have left are the ones your healing factor didn’t have the time to heal.”

The silence dominated the room.

No wonder why Steve felt the way he felt. Like he had been turned inside out and run over by an asphalt roller, scraped up from the ground like minced meat and rebuilt like a piece of clay.

“Short version: you can wear size extra small again,” Tony said in such a bombastic way that Steve couldn’t miss the disapproving look from Sam.

“So…” There was a prickling at the back of Steve’s eyes, and the breath he let out was a trembling one. “... the serum… is it gone?”

“We don’t know,” Dr. Cho said. “My team is still analyzing your blood samples as we speak. It would have helped if we still had the bullet that was fired, but it seems like it disintegrated upon impact. As for the weapon itself, we’ve been unable to locate it.”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut, hands balling into white knuckled fists. His arm hurt, muscles pulling over the broken bones and suddenly, just breathing felt like the hardest thing in the world.

“But we’re gonna fix you,” Tony said softly and that sounded like a promise. “Banner might not be here, but I’ve assigned the best scientists there is to find to figure out what happened. Myself included.”

In the background, the heart monitor was still beeping profusely.

“Maybe we should all back away from that conversation right now,” Sam suggested seriously and although Steve wasn’t even looking at him, he could picture the dark frown on Sam’s face. “What’s important is that you’re alive. You’re gonna come back from this.”

As much as Steve wanted to believe that, he couldn’t. It felt like a big, black hole had opened before him and swallowed him whole, engulfing him in a seemingly endless darkness. Because this was it—wasn’t it? Erskine’s work had come undone, Steve was back at where he started, small and weak and—

“Leave,” Steve heard himself say, fragile and thin. The frantic sound of the monitor felt like the most betraying thing in the entire world.

“You heard the man,” Sam said and Steve opened his eyes just in time to see him herd Tony and Dr. Cho toward the door. “Let’s give him some room.”

Steve looked at Bucky, who glanced anxiously toward the door and then back at him.

“Do you want me to stay?” Bucky asked and to that, Steve just nodded because that was all he could do.. He watched as Bucky pulled out a chair, parking himself as close to the bed he could possibly get by the time the door finally swung close.

And then it was quiet.

Steve breathed in and out, straining to not fall apart at the seams. He was alright—he was alive, whatever that had happened to him, magic alien fires or not, he had come through on the other end in one piece. Still ten fingers and ten toes; he was in the clear, he could come back from this, he was—

—lying to himself.

“You saw it go down?” Steve asked the ceiling, small and scared.

“Yes,” Bucky said.

“Who shot me?” Steve asked and looked back at Bucky, who lifted his good shoulder in a half-shrug.

“I don’t know, I didn’t see. I just… I heard a shot go off and when I turned back to you, you were already burning.”

Hearing it a second time didn’t clear the sky from clouds or unburdened the weight in Steve’s chest. It sounded like Bucky was reciting a vivid dream, something made up after one to many puffs on the wrong pipe and that Steve would soon wake up from whatever this was.

But it wasn’t a dream—or a nightmare. He was in too much pain for it to be all in his head, and the thought of that tugged hard on the knot in his chest, when it couldn’t even be a twisted fantasy.

“What happened to me?” Steve asked again, small and lost and confused, because it didn’t make any _sense_. Because it didn’t make sense, any of it. He blinked and blinked and blinked because Bucky turned blurry — how could a _bullet_ cause someone to light on fire?

Suddenly, he wanted to call Helen back in here for all the answers. To have her give him everything they got.

“Heyheyhey,” Bucky said gently, “easy now.” And then the chair screeched, the mattress dipped and then he was just there, in Steve’s space. Close and smelling of spicy aftershave and mint toothpaste, leaning right over Steve, boxing him in with all that warmth and Steve just clung to that, small arms coming around Bucky’s neck and holding onto him like his life depended on it.

Like that could stop the tears welling up, the sob wrecking through his throat and coming out like a harsh huff against Bucky’s neck.

“ _W-what happened_?” Steve cried and he couldn’t stop the wheezing or the tears or the tremors—

Bucky shushed him. “You’re fine,” his words were warm against Steve’s skin and his whole chest vibrated against Steve’s. Warm and pleasant and safe, so safe. “You’re gonna be fine; they’re gonna fix you, alright?”

Steve nodded again and again and again, because he needed to believe that. He needed to.

 

* * *

 

“You’re not turning into me, are you?” Bucky asked gently the next day after Steve had put Dr. Cho through an hour long cross-examination, rephrasing the same basic questions again and again. _What happened, how did this happened, what will happen to me?_

In one way, it felt like Steve was in a state of waiting. Like he was waiting for this to end any day now and that he would find himself back in the belly of the jet, ready for battle. He was ready for things to go back to how they were: perfect, because before this, life had been good and bright and–not like this, when Bucky looked so worry that Steve couldn’t even stand to look his way.  

 

* * *

 

Even a week after waking up, Steve still didn’t believe them.

Because it was so strange, to suddenly not heal overnight. To watch the nurses unwrap the bandages every day and to feel the sting as they cleaned the wounds. He wasn’t deformed, not in the way he had started to believe after all the pitiful glances tossed his way, but he felt different.

He remembered the days after the success of Project Rebirth and how his new, bigger self had been something of a kick in the gut. Waking up to something that looked so much like the scrawny body that had only set limitations back in the days had been nothing less than a complete knockout.

Everything sunk in on a grey Tuesday, when Bucky helped him up from the hospital bed and into the shower. When they stood side by side in the pale bathroom, Steve balancing on his good leg and with one arm wrapped around Bucky’s midriff for support, that was when the revelation struck. Because next to him, Bucky was thick and wide and tall – towering over him by at least one head.

Then there was the mirror. When Steve saw his own reflection, it felt as if he had fallen back in time. The sight made his heart drop, put a strain on his breath, made his one good knee weak, because the man staring back at him was the same hallowed-cheeked kid with the same big, crooked nose from back in the days. His hair was longer, the golden tresses reaching well down to his ears. Pale and sick and absolutely—

Steve looked away when Bucky’s hand skimmed over his back, fingers untangling the knots of the gown. His gaze was neutral as he undressed Steve and helped him onto the plastic stool in the shower.

Beneath the hospital garb, Steve looked even worse. He was skin and bones, held together by nothing but his burnt hide. Where the bruising wasn’t growing into a blue green or tarnished by fire, his skin so pale that it was almost translucent. Because of all that, Bucky treated him like he was made out of porcelain.

When Bucky was down on his knees, his hands moved with an unquestionable tenderness, agile fingers meticulously wrapping the plastic wrap over Steve’s cast.

“That good?”

“Yeah,” Steve said flatly, both mind and eyes alike lingering on the mirror. He couldn’t see himself from where he sat, which was perhaps a blessing in itself. “Thank you.”

“Let me know if it’s too hot,” Bucky said, fingers sweeping over the two wrapped casts one last time before he reached for the showerhead. In the next, the water started running warm over Steve’s skin, splattering softly against the tiles, the plastic of the stool.

And it was quiet. Bucky didn’t utter a word, taking to the silence Steve had grown accustomed to the last year. He focused on the steam already forming on the mirror ahead and Bucky’s feather light touches, warm and lingering and just there, like he never took his hands off Steve as he worked routinely. Shower head in his left hand, the other rubbing slow soothing circles all over Steve’s body, lathering the perfume free soap as he carefully minded the burns.

Bucky moved to face him, putting himself between Steve and the mirror above the sink and instead, Steve watched dark, spotty stains grow on Bucky’s crimson shirt, the water coming onto him as he rinsed off the foam. He was barefoot, the legs of his sweatpants rolled up to his knees.

“Do you remember me like this?” Steve asked quietly.

Bucky hummed in response, fingers carding through the damp tresses of Steve’s hair. “The first memory I have of you is when you were like this.”

“Like this,” Steve echoed.

Bucky hummed again and there was a warmth to it, like he was smiling. “I like you like this,” he said. “Helps me remember the good times.”  

 

* * *

 

“C’mon Buck Rogers, make your move.”

The tower swayed back and forth.

From bed, Steve watched the battle of the giants, which was Bucky and Tony playing their twelfth round of Jenga. Everyone had turned it into a daily habit of sorts, popping in whenever Steve woke from a sleep he thought he would never get enough of, mostly just to chat or like today, to entertain Bucky who hadn’t spent more than an hour away from Steve since everything had gone down.

Bucky furrowed his brows, gleaming index finger gently prodding the two bottom pieces of the wooden build, carefully searching for the loosest brick in the tower that seemed to defy gravity. It was tall and hollow and it was amazing how fifty-four bricks could spike such a rivalry.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Tony prompted just as Bucky started to push out the left piece, which would leave the center to fend for itself. “That’s a founding block, it’s gonna fall.”

“It’s not gonna fall,” Bucky insisted as he pushed the bottom block with his finger, the piece inching out slowly and smoothly.

Then the whole tower shifted. He froze, wooden piece one quarter away from freedom, stuck between one breath and the next, finger still in place. Tony snorted amused, like he already was cashing out his victory, and Bucky gave Steve one look that said it all, before he gave it one final push, the piece coming loose—

—and the tower fell with a loud crash. Wooden blocks spilling over the table, down onto the floor.

Tony lit up like a firecracker, his grin nothing but smug. “Told you,” he said.

Steve managed a lopsided smile in return when Bucky quickly looked his way.

“ _Boss_ ,” Friday called over the speakers. “ _Miss Potts is on the line.”_

Tony’s shoulders went back, spine going straight. “I’ll take it in my office, I’ll be right there,” he said quickly and then narrowed his eyes at Bucky, smile still going strong. “When I come back, prepare to get your ass kicked again.”

“Dream on,” Bucky said with a huff, shaking his head. They both watched as Tony made his exit with a sloppy salute.

As soon as the door closed Steve said, “You let him win.”

Bucky gave a knowing smile and shrugged, indifferent to the accusation.

“You’re too kind,” Steve admired. Not that he expected any different – Bucky had always been wary around Tony. Contained and careful, almost as if he was afraid the truth would spill right out of him if he got too close.

The thing was, if Tony knew the truth about his parents, he was oddly at peace with it. He was still the same bright and annoyingly charming Tony Stark, who just gave and offered and fixed things without asking for anything back. He was still the same Tony who had taken one look at Bucky rocking back and forth in the backseat of Sam’s car last year and spent the whole plane ride back already trying to figure out why it looked like Bucky had shoved in his arm in a flaming decompressor.

There hadn’t been an anger sparking his eyes, no fury that had set his jaw tight and clenched his fists when he had sat opposite to Bucky on the plane, gently asking about the arm. What it was made of, when it was made, what had happened. 

And Bucky had answered each and every one to the best of his ability, but never once looking up to look Tony in the eye. 

Even today, Bucky always seemed to avoid that.

 

* * *

 

Nine months ago, their roles had been reversed. Last year, it had been Steve sitting by the edge of Bucky’s hospital bed. They had passed the time by watching movies together, reading in silence, chatting each other’s ears off. Just like Bucky had gotten used to see his ugly mug every time he woke up, Steve had grown used to Bucky being there whenever the painkillers wore off and sent him back into reality.

And today was no different. When Steve was roused from sleep by the dull ache in his broken leg, Bucky sat in his usual chair, feet propped up on the bed and all his focus poured down into the tablet in his hand. For a fuzzy minute, Steve watched as he clenched and unclenched the metal fist repeatedly, listening to the quiet whirring of the cogs beneath the plates.

After almost a year together, Steve had learned Bucky’s small telltale signs.

“How’s the arm?” Steve asked, half-mumbling into the pillow.

Bucky looked up, smiling faintly. “Itching.”

“Want me to scratch it?”

Bucky hummed.

“C’mere,” Steve said and patted the mattress next to him. He moved slowly to the side as Bucky got up and closed the distance between them before he laid down as carefully as Steve had made room for him. The bed was barely big enough for them both.

“Hope I’m not pulling on anything,” Bucky mumbled as he scouted for any kind of wires and tubes.

“No.” Steve leaned his head against Bucky’s cold shoulder. Hand already sliding down the metal, from the crook of his elbow down to his open palm and then all the way up again.

Like he promised, Tony had fixed Bucky. Swapped some wires, changed the damaged plates, but other than that it was still the same arm with the star on the shoulder. Tony had offered to upgrade him to something that had the possibility to distinguish not only pressure, but textures and temperatures as well. Bucky, however, had declined for reasons Steve could only imagine.

Last year when Stark had finished the retrofit, Banner had taken the helm on Bucky’s recovery. On paper it had become more clear that whatever serum that ran in Bucky’s veins wasn’t the same as the one designed by Erskine. Steve didn’t want to call it a knock-off because that sounded awful, but there was no other word for it.

Bucky’s strength came with a high price. Just a few nights after they had brought him in last year, it had become painfully evident that he carried battle wounds from their last encounter and that arm Steve had literally broken in the heat of battle, had healed wrong. Uneven and causing pain even months down the line.

Again, it had been Tony who rubbed his hands together and pulled a first class surgical team out of his back pocket, essentially saving the day. But despite their fancy medical gadgets and thousand of hours spent with a scalpel in hand, they had struggled to rebreak the bone, because just like Steve’s, Bucky’s bones were dense and close to impossible to break for the average human.

Add the complications with the anesthesia and Steve never, ever wanted to go through that again; being asked to scrub in to calm down Bucky who had been a wreck, ready to bring everyone down with him in that operating room.

That Bucky’s bones didn’t set on their own was a flaw. Then there was his metabolism, that according to Banner worked a little _too_ well and Steve still didn’t understand how that added up, but what was important was that they had found something that worked for Bucky, because reading on about all the negative effects of severe vitamin deficiency was enough for Steve to lie sleepless at night.

Needless to say, the sight of that weekly vitamin shot always calmed Steve’s nerves. He only wished that had been the end of problems, but it wasn’t.

Banner hadn’t figured out if it was a case of sensitivity or just bad associations, but Bucky didn’t eat normal food – no meat, no dairy, no gluten, no eggs.  In the months since he had come to, the closest Steve had seen Bucky eat to a cooked meal was oven fried potato wedges with some sunflower oil and thyme, later dipped in hummus. Other than that, he ate a whole lot of fruit and vegetables, giving that poor blender a run for its money.

After the food issues, there was the whole unclimbed mountain of pain. Because Bucky was in pain; every day, every hour, every second. For as amazing as the metal arm looked, it was a double edged sword that literally had Bucky on the knees during the worst of days. At least Steve had been there, hurting to such an extent that he got a second glimpse of whatever he had eaten that day, but watching Bucky go through it was worse, because there was nothing he could do to make it better.

They had tried everything from mirror box therapy to painkillers strong enough to level a horde of elephants to injecting anesthesia into the severed nerves. Now they were just at a plateau where they were learning how to deal with everything; to accept the days were the pain drove Bucky up against the wall.

And Steve, who could barely stand the itching beneath his own bandages, didn’t even want to know how everyday must feel like for Bucky.

“That good?” Steve asked.

“Yeah.”

Steve watched when Bucky propped up the tablet on his hip, thumb unpausing the video.

“What are we watching?”

“The Backyard Scientist,” Bucky read casually, “ _’What happens if you pour molten aluminum in a watermelon_?’”

“Sounds interesting.” Against his cheek, Steve felt Bucky’s whole chest vibrate through the arm as he hummed.

Together they laid close, watching some young scout dressed in various Hawaii shirts do all kinds of crazy experiments involving molten aluminum and fruit. Half of the time, the result was impressive. The other half, Steve felt like dozing off, but the ache in his leg was persistent and he found himself shedding the glow of sleep.

Watching aluminum casts from inside various types of fruit was only entertaining for so long and soon Steve found himself staring through the window instead—the wind blew harshly through the small grove of trees, the sky grey and dull, an ironic reflection of his current state. Was it even summer anymore? It felt like he had spent an eternity and then some in this godforsaken bed, falling in and out of sleep at all hours of the day.

Steve stirred a little, head turning toward Bucky who had his eyes fixated on the rolling video. Up close, Steve saw the summer freckles on his face. The fine lines beneath his eyes and the dip of his chin, almost invisible beneath heavy six o’clock shadow.

Somehow Bucky must have felt his stare, because in the next he turned his head toward Steve with a lazy smile. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Steve said softly and watched as Bucky lowered the tablet; the video quiet and completed.

“You alright?” he asked with that wrinkle between his brows.

The pillow rustled as Steve nodded. “Yeah.”

“You’re not in pain?”

“I’m fine,” Steve said, brushing it off the same way his fingers brushed over each and every joint between the smooth plates, slow and gentle.

Bucky stirred next to him, the arm whirring and then he said, “C’mere,” before raising it. On cue, Steve leaned forward to the best of his ability, allowing the metal arm to come snug around his shoulders. They squeezed themselves close and now as Bucky hummed as if pleased, the vibrations trembled through Steve.

“You sure you’re alright?”

“Am now,” Steve mumbled, fingers smoothing out a deep fold in Bucky’s shirt. Beneath his hand, he felt Bucky’s heartbeat.

Bucky pressed his lips against forehead and this—this was nice. Like a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

* * *

 

Sam pushed the wheelchair. For the first time in what both felt like and probably was weeks, Steve was outside, breathing in clean, unfiltered air. He felt the wind against his cheek, heard the birds chirp and for a summer day, the sky was bleak.

“What do you think Fury wants with Bucky?” Sam asked when the ground turned to gravel. Behind them, the Avengers facility slowly shrunk.

Steve shrugged, the blanket around him falling down an inch and said, “I’m guessing it’s about coming and working for him.”

“He’s gonna say no,” Sam said with a streak of determination.

“I know,” Steve said. “He doesn’t want to do that anymore.”

For a handful of crouching steps, they enjoyed the silence. “You know,” Sam began. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“Ever thought about letting Bucky join the Avengers?”

“I have.” Steve glanced over his shoulder, looking up at Sam. “Tony brought it up a few weeks ago. He thought we could need another body on the field even before all this happened.”

The thing was, Bucky was like an old dog that already knew the neighborhood and refused to walk any other walk than their usual one. He wasn’t an Avenger because he didn’t want to fight anymore and Steve knew that. The _only_ reason why Bucky had showed up during the battle of Sokovia was because Fury had burst his bubble and given him the straight facts, saying that if he wanted to keep things as they were, he might have to fight for it.

After that, Bucky had started to join them on bigger operations — always dressed as just another faceless body in the tac team around the Avengers, but still there with his intimidating battle prowess and helping out to balance the scales. 

“Well, Stark’s right. We could use another, especially now if what we’ve heard about Rumlow is true.”

If there even was an ounce of authenticity to the rumors, their odds were as bleak as the sky above their heads. Cloudy with a good chance of rain.  

“I know,” Steve said, sighing as he slumped back against the back of the chair, eyes looking forward. “I just don’t know if that’s what Bucky wants. If I ask him I’m afraid he’s gonna say yes because he doesn’t want to let me down.”

Sam smiled. “He thinks the world of you, but I think he’s there enough to know that he can say no, you know? Or maybe we should talk to him about consent again?” he mused.

“Oh God, please no,” Steve begged with an embarrassed smile, the memory sending all the blood to his face.   

Just one month after Bucky had come back to him, they had found their way back into each other’s pants so quickly that Steve had freaked out. His first, immediate fear was that he had worn his heart on his sleeve to such an extent that somehow Bucky felt inclined to pick him up from that bittersweet place he had been in after their reunion.

Bucky hadn’t told him about what Hydra had done to him through the seventy years he had been gone and Steve didn’t expect him to, but that hadn’t stopped Steve’s irrational fears from going into full bloom and assuming the worst. So when they had tried to get together, Steve had simply planted his feet and asked for reassurance – just to ensure that this was something Bucky wanted on his own volition. Because the mere thought of Bucky approaching him because Steve couldn’t help his own heart eyes and did it out of pity or worse, out of bargaining, chilled Steve to the bone.

And that was when Sam had found them. Half-dressed and tousled, voices raised at each other because Bucky hadn’t really understood Steve’s worry.

Needless to say, it had been awkward.

But Sam had been painfully diplomatic and pedagogic about the whole thing – explaining consent and taking Steve’s side in the matter, telling Bucky that it was only a case of ensuring his own well being.

In the end, Bucky had seen things from Steve’s perspective and things had calmed like it had never happened, and after Sam had taken his leave, they had gotten together as if they hadn’t spent a day apart.

“I think you worry too much about him,” Sam said warmly. “He’s alright, he knows what he’s doing.”

“Yeah,” Steve said with a small, building smile. “I guess you’re right.”

“Has there ever been a time where I _haven’t_ been right?”

“… I’m not gonna feed your ego on this one.”

 

* * *

 

Steve was alone when Tony came barging in, soot on his shirt and a lightbulb practically glowing above his head. Eyes wide and livid in such a way that Steve got his hopes up, his stomach knotting in anticipation. The book in his hand was easy to shut.

“I have an idea,” Tony said.

Steve gave a half-smile. “You have a lot of ideas.”

“Well, you’re right about that,” Tony agreed as he walked closer to the bed, gaze falling to his arm where he idly brushed off some ash. “But this idea concerns your metal armed boyfriend.”

Steve tried to ignore the ice forming in his stomach, but his smile died anyway. “Something tells me I’m not gonna like this.”

“Probably not,” Tony said bluntly as he pulled out a chair and sat down next to the bed, arms crossing over his chest as he leaned back. “We already know Crossbones has got somewhat of a boner for you.”

“Yeah?”

Tony uncrossed his arms and extended them from his body; marketing it like it was the greatest idea in the world. He even smiled. “What if we put Frostbite in your suit?”

Steve’s face scrunched up. “What? _No_.”

_“Think_ about it,” Tony countered quickly, hands moving casually as talked. “People—the press has already noted your absence and you’ve been gone for what, three weeks? I’m not saying that we should use him as bait, but the world knows you took a hit after the last one, and I think it would do some good if they saw someone wielding that giant frisbee again.”

“ _Tony_.” Steve scrubbed his face with his good hand, suddenly feeling exhausted. “He’s a wanted man. We can’t just put him on a podium and parade him to the press just to ease the people at home.”

“No,” Tony agreed. “But we’ve had ops in the concrete jungle and whenever we’ve taken the fight to the street, people have filmed us. You know, where they use their fancy camera phones. You’ve seen YouTube, there must be at least a hundred different videos of us in action, and what I’m saying is that publicity like that could be good—to let the people know that whatever went down in that factory didn’t kill Captain America.”

For a long moment, they simply looked at each other and Steve saw everything earnest about Tony.

He was dead serious.

There was no twitch on either side of his mouth, hinting about a suppressed smile; no playful gleam in his eyes. From the sound of it, Tony was actually willing to risk the safety of someone they had spent a small fortune on keeping hidden. Tony wanted to put someone who suffered from chronic pains and brain damage into the spotlight, just so that he could ease the worried hearts of America.

Steve filled his fists with the blanket, his knuckles whitening.  

“Besides,” Tony said as he rubbed his palms together. He softened in a way; voice coming on more gentle as if he picked up on Steve’s anger. “Putting Buck Rogers in the star suit isn’t all about giving Crossbones the finger or proving to the world that Captain America is still out there. The kids are doing good—amazing even, but they need help.”

Steve set his jaw, words coming off with more bite than intended. “If you know that, then why don’t you suit up?”

“I’ve made a promise,” Tony said, mellow in a way that struck a chord in Steve. “One I intend to keep.”

“Tony, it isn’t fair to put him out there.” Steve looked away, down to the book in his lap as he shook his head, disbelieving. “He’s not ready and we both know it.”

This time, it was Tony’s turn to shake his head. He rose from the chair, much like his voice when he spoke. “Don’t give me that, Rogers,” he said with an edge. “You are babying him and you’ve been doing that from the start.”  

“Yes!” Steve glared at him. “Because he needs it, he’s not ready for the field yet and perhaps he’ll never be again.”

Tony scoffed, the smile on his face nothing but sardonic. “And yet he followed you every time you suited up.”

“Tony, _don’t_ ,” Steve warned.

“Don’t you remember what the first thing Mr. Freezer Burn said to me?” Tony’s eyes burned bright with livid conviction, his words filling up with it. “He said he wanted to make things right again and letting him out into the world again is a good first step. We’ve cooped him up here for a long time, and it is high time to let him out without you holding the leash. Let him pay back for whatever debts he thinks he owes.”

Steve fell silent. Looking back, he was certain Bucky had meant making right by Tony and not the world, but he couldn’t say that. Instead he pursed his lips and looked away, sucking in a deep, defeated breath of air, his anger calming to a simmer.

“I’m just worried about what will happen if people figure it out, which they will,” Steve said as he looked Tony in the eye. “He can’t go to jail.”

“If it comes to that, we’ll deal with it,” Tony said. “All I want is for you to think about it, alright? I know how much Bucky means to you, which is why I’m asking you to consider this. Let him pick up the shield until we get you back on your feet. We both know that he has earned it well enough.”

 

* * *

 

Steve hadn’t thought about giving up the shield, but every time he laid eyes on Bucky, he was reminded all over again how good Bucky looked in blue.

 

* * *

 

On the day of Steve’s release from the medical wing, reports came in about a stolen weapon cache in Italy. Twenty-nine dead, even more injured and if Vision’s sources were true, Rumlow was behind the attack.

As Steve watched the news report that night, it felt as if he had swapped one bed for another. One month after the gun had gone off and he was still small; forced to rely on that damn wheelchair if he wanted to get anywhere without anyone’s help. Not that Bucky ever let him out of sight for long enough to get by on his own.

_At least this bed is large enough to fit us both_ , Steve thought as he laid next to Bucky that night. Through the partly open window, the wind howled and no moon, no stars could be seen upon the sky.

Steve rubbed his bare feet together beneath the comforter as he glanced over at Bucky. “Could you get me a blanket?” he asked.

Bucky tore his eyes from screen, dark hair tousled on the pale pillow as he looked around their bedroom. He scratched his eyebrow as he put down the tablet, pausing the video rambling about the chemistry of mentos and coke, and then Bucky took one considering look at Steve. There was a twitch at the left corner of his mouth, a devilish flash and then he rolled over like a damn asphalt roller until he rested like a parentheses next to Steve. Chest to back, arms sneaking around Steve’s torso, pulling him closer with that quiet strength Steve had nothing against.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky mumbled as he settled, his warm hand landing on Steve’s stomach, fingertips just touching the coarse hair beneath his navel. “I don’t want to get up, the blankets are in the other room.”

Steve snorted in timid amusement. “You’ll do fine.”

“You alright?” Bucky’s breath was hot against Steve’s neck, sending shivers down his back and pimpling the hair on his arms.

“Just cold,” Steve said and to that, Bucky hooked a leg over his and rubbed his feet against Steve’s cold ones.

He stayed like that for a while, so close that Steve could feel Bucky smiling against his neck; the way his lips grazed the pink scars of Steve’s shoulder and for a while, Bucky seemed content like that, just being close; fingertips idly tracing the coarse hair and down to the waistband of Steve’s boxers and then up again.

In front of them, the TV flashed silently of today’s news report. One of the rolling segments read, _where are the Avengers?_

Steve saw the ambulance staff, the draped gurneys, the police and his heart, body and soul ached all at once. Behind him, Bucky must have noted the sudden tension in his shoulders because that hand and its quiet request, withdrew in a long, sweeping stroke until it finally settled on Steve’s shoulder instead.

“Would you join the Avengers if I asked you to?” Steve asked, the question bouncing against the wall; against the TV. He felt the tension ripple through the arm cradling him, the way Bucky’s breath picked up against the back of his neck.

“Yes,” Bucky breathed.

Steve glanced over his shoulder, only to find Bucky looking back at him. “Do you want to?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky said as he propped himself up on his elbow, pulling away enough for Steve to roll over and lie down on his back.

Steve simpered as he asked, “You like what we’re doing?”

Bucky cocked his head to the side and said with a nod, “yeah.” His eyes lit up with something Steve hadn’t seen since forever, mouth curving into a honest-to-God smile. “Makes me feel good. Like I’m giving something back.”

“You don’t owe the world anything though.”

And just like that, Bucky faded; his smile hollowing in the blink of an eye and that look said enough. For a moment, they just looked at each other in the eye as Steve tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind Bucky’s ear. They had been over this so many times that Steve had stopped picking this battle. Because in this, Bucky was static. Rooted to the ground by guilt and shame.

Steve breathed in, enjoying the last few seconds of quiet and serenity, knowing that everything would change the moment he asked what had been on his mind for the past few weeks. He looked Bucky in the eye and pushed a smile onto his lips, ignoring the tug in his chest.

“If I asked you to pick up the shield, would you do that?” he asked.

Bucky snorted like he didn’t believe what he just heard, sudden and unexpected and had Steve asked about anything else than that, he would have smiled at the sudden buzz. “That’s a hypothetical question, right?” Bucky asked with a too-wide of a smile.

Steve’s lips settled into something sorry looking, something that told enough and in a second, the air between them went stale and tense.

It looked like all the blood drained from Bucky’s face. “Why would you ask that?” he asked, terrified.

“Because the world needs it,” Steve said evenly, “and because you’d look good in that suit.”

Bucky pushed himself upright as he shook his head, turning away from Steve as if putting a mile between them would change the question asked. “I’m not—I’m not cut for that,” he said.

“I think you are,” Steve said. Saying it felt like a lie, but it wasn’t. He reached up to touch Bucky’s back, fingertips sliding over the bumps of his spine, the skin beneath his fingertips warm, boiling almost. “You’re the best soldier I know,” he said and that felt less like a lie, like it eased off his tongue easier.

“I’m a wanted man.”

“Keep the helmet on, shave off that gruff on your chin and I think you’re covered.”

Bucky looked back down at him, frown heavy and dark and putting ten years on his actual age. He looked worn and cynical. “…you want me to act in your place,” he concluded after a long pause, the puzzle piece falling into place.

“Yeah,” Steve said. In his chest, his heart pumped fast. “It would keep your identity safe, put you on the field.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “And what if I just want to be an Avenger?”

“Then you’ll just be an Avenger.” There was a beat of silence, a moment where Steve expected Bucky to reply, but when he didn’t, Steve continued, aiming for strong and confident, but sounded more meek than anything. Timid and small, like a gift that just had to be accepted. “But I’m still offering you the shield. If you’ll have it, it’s yours,” he said.

“For how long?”

“For as long as it’s needed.”

Bucky breathed a shaky breath and shook his head all _no no_. “I don’t want to stain your reputation. If anyone finds out—”

“They won’t,” Steve interrupted, hand having traveled down to Bucky's, fingers running  over the back of Bucky’s hand, gently tracing the joints of the metal. Steve felt like a poor salesman trying to sell faulty merchandise, coming with reassurances and promises and everything—everything just sounded so hollow and perhaps Bucky heard it, too. “And if they do we’ll deal with it.”

Bucky raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t think you’ve thought this through,” he said, sighing.

“I’ve thought about it for two weeks straight,” Steve said and sat up, hand settling on Bucky’s shoulder. There was a pause, a moment where he braced and then he said, “Tony suggested it.”

Bucky’s head snapped sideways as he looked at Steve. “Tony?” he echoed with a grimace.

“Yeah.” Steve willed himself to not look away, as if holding Bucky’s gaze was something monumental. “He said you’d be the man for the job,” he said in an undertone.

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “I don’t know about that,” he said.

“He trusts you,” Steve said. “I trust you.”

“He shouldn’t,” Bucky mumbled and Steve could practically hear him revving; working himself up over past sins, ready to drive off the edge. “He doesn’t know.”

And Steve knew exactly what he meant and that didn’t stop his chest from hurting any less. He swallowed and lowered his gaze, eyes skimming over the Bucky’s summer-freckles, the dip of his chin, the cords of his throat and then as he looked up, he saw Bucky wet his lips and the way his gaze fell low, like he was looking to kiss him.

“Is this something you want?” Bucky asked gravely.

“It’s for the best,” Steve said flatly and looked away, over Bucky’s shoulder and through the window, eyeing the darkness of the night.

Bucky’s face took on a hard, disapproving edge. “That’s not what I asked,” he pushed, cold hand coming up and then he touched Steve’s face, metal thumb and finger gently grasping Steve’s chin, capturing his gaze.

“Right now, it’s not about what I want,” Steve said quietly as Bucky looked at him as if he was trying to read his mind.

If a pin dropped, it would have been heard from miles away. Steve listened to Bucky breathe in, saw the way his nostrils flared as he breathed out and the tension easing off his jaw.

“Can I sleep on it?” Bucky asked, sounding as defeated and worn as Steve felt.

 

* * *

 

After having been oddly quiet the whole morning, Bucky approached him after lunch. “Okay,” he said, leaning in the doorway to their bedroom.

Steve looked up from the book in his lap and nodded. “You sure?” he asked, ignoring the pressure in his chest and the ice in his stomach.

“Yeah,” Bucky breathed, looking so much like a deer in the headlights. “I’ll do it for you.”

 

 


	3. Tourbillion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bucky looked heartbreakingly good.

Blue had always been his color. Before the army had given him a new formal uniform to wear for fancy occasions, Bucky had always worn that dark oxford blue suit his father had bought for his eighteenth birthday. Made-to-measure instead of off the peg. Steve remembered that day in the shop vividly; with the way the spring rain clattered against the store windows; the crooked back of the tailor as he had pinned the needles; the grave lines on Bucky’s face as he had looked into the full-body mirror. The fabric, the color, the snug fit; together they had changed Bucky’s youthful glow into a mature one. Just like George Barnes wanted it to do; a gift attached with the invisible strings of expectations.

If Steve were a balloon, seeing Bucky wear the familiar star-spangled uniform was the needle that sent him deflating across the room. He couldn’t explain the ache in his chest or the ice in his stomach or why the smile he pushed onto his lips felt like a too tight sweater. His heart thundered against his ribs and the breath he dragged in was a measured one, slow and long as he hoped Bucky saw it as awe rather than for what it truly was.

“How do I look?” Bucky asked everyone, but looked at Steve as if he was the only one in the room. His lips procured the same coy smile he had been working on for the last nine months, hoping that no one was the wiser. But Steve saw the hollowness of it; the trepidation just beneath the surface of wearing a uniform that meant so much for so many.

Next to Steve, Sam whistled with a big grin. “I thought you’d look like a dog with shoes on,” he said. “But you look like the flag man himself.”

“How does the suit feel, Shaggy?” asked Tony, perking up behind the stack of electronics by his desk.

“It’s a bit…” Bucky rolled his shoulders, the mechanical whir filling the lab. “… stiff.”

“It’s a new suit, it’s supposed to be stiff.” Tony’s face was as mild as his voice when he walked closer, parking himself between the duo resting on the half-burnt couch. “I don’t think you would’ve fit into Rogers’ old pantyhose anyway,” he added with a neutral shrug.

“A good sweat will sort out the stiffness,” Steve offered, the words coming out so evenly that he even surprised himself. His lips attempted another, wider smile, but his eyes didn’t and if Bucky’s wary nod gave anything away, he must have seen right through it.

That morning, Steve had watched from the doorway as Bucky had toweled his face dry from any leftover shaving foam. It was as if the razor had cut ten years off his face; he didn’t look like someone who had gone to war seventy years ago and never truly made it back home. He looked like the Bucky the dames had loved: polished and charming.

Bucky fingered the collar as he looked at Tony. “Does it come in black?”

“No—wait, hold on a minute,” Sam interrupted, raising his hands as if in a standoff. “As much as mother Russia favored the kinky dungeon master style with all the leather, I think it’s time to move on. Blue is your color, man.”

“What he said.” Tony fought a bubbling laugh, lips lined so tense with suppression as he pointed at Sam. “But I can get it to you in pink if you’d like,” he mused, cracking open into a wide enough smile to show his teeth.

“No thanks,” Bucky said, both gaze and smile falling alike.

They meant well, Steve knew they did, but watching them laugh and jest as Bucky looked so uncomfortable evoked a dark, rumbling cloud above his head. “Do you want to take it off?” he asked seriously.

Bucky’s eyes bore a hopeful gleam as their gazes met. “Can I?”

Tony sat up straighter on the couch, smile calming an inch. “You don’t want to keep it on, walk around in it a little?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, growing serious. “Like how does the boots feel, they good?”

Bucky took a measured step forward. “They are good,” he said flatly.

“And nothing is too-tight?”

“Nah,” Bucky shrugged, “it’s all good.”

“All good?” Tony asked, not sounding too convinced as he pushed himself up from the couch. “Except for the color.”

“No, blue is fine,” Bucky said and there was that coy smile again; that slight tension that pulled back his shoulders when Tony took a step closer.

“Okay,” Tony said, looking at Bucky from head to toe and then all the way back up again. “Well, if you’re happy, then I’m happy.” He turned to Steve and asked, “You happy as well little guy?”

Steve rubbed his sweaty palms on his pantlegs and nodded, lips mashed into a hard line.

 

* * *

 

Their bed was an ocean of cotton and warmth. Through the big windows, the half-moon cast a stale light, layering the room full of shadows. Behind him, Steve felt Bucky’s slow breaths brush against his nape.

For everything bad the fire had caused, to suddenly not hear the boiling pipes or the faucet dripping in the bathroom down the corridor was not one of them. Before the serum, there was the city that never slept. After the ice, there had been the future that had been impossibly loud, crowding him on all sides and never truly leaving him alone. Steve hadn’t figured out why everything felt so flat until the first night in his own bed after waking up after the fire, when he could lie close to Bucky without minding tubes and electrodes.

For all the millions Tony had poured into the new Avengers facility when he raised the house in seemingly one day, it wouldn’t surprise Steve if he stuffed the walls with dollar bills instead of real isolation just for the heck of it. Back in the tower, there had been the city noises floating in the background; buzzing, honking, shouting.

Now it was just quiet, eerily so. Steve couldn’t even hear the sound of Bucky’s heart beating anymore. The soft, easy thud he had grown used to listening to in the drowsy moments before sleep.

“You still sure about this?” Bucky asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Steve stopped tracing his fingertips along the wrist of Bucky’s cold arm. His breathing had been so calm, so steady that Steve had thought he had dozed off; the lax hand that had stopped rubbing gentle circles just above his heart long ago had only sold the case further.

But from the sound of it, Bucky was wide awake. Not even an ounce of gravel grumbling his voice.

“Yeah,” Steve breathed after a moment, shedding the tension in his shoulders.   

Bucky shifted behind him, nose rubbing high in between Steve’s shoulder blades. He was quiet for a second, two and then he exhaled heavily over Steve’s burning skin. “It didn’t feel… weird, did it?” he asked.

Steve gulped down, shoulders curling forward just the slightest. “A little,” he confessed.

Before the big war, they hadn’t slept like this. Tangled up and close, two bodies merging into one. Breathing each other in, sweating together – this was something new and in the beginning, Steve had loved it. He still did. To finally be close to someone who had been gone for so long; to listen to each and every breath that reminded him that Bucky had survived the fall, the Russians, Hydra.

But tonight their bed was like a furnace. Everything was too hot: Bucky, the sheets, the duvet. Steve gingerly shifted closer to the edge and Bucky picked up the cue as if burnt, withdrawing his cold arm without a word.

The air between them turned into a vacuum and for a moment, Steve was convinced that Bucky would be able to hear the fast thuds of his heart. He pulled the duvet aside, hoping to make as much sound as possible as he pushed it down and left it balled up by his shins; shivering at the sudden drop in temperature.

“You looked good,” Steve said. “Today I mean. In the suit. I liked it.” Each word rang hollow and false and his stomach dropped as he fell into the deep grave he had so swiftly dug for himself by just opening his mouth. He inhaled a shaky breath, untangling the pounding mess behind his forehead.

Behind him, Bucky was unmoving. So still and quiet that Steve couldn’t even hear him breathing anymore.

“I’m sorry, I sound like an asshole,” he flustered, glancing over his shoulder and catching the sight of the moonlight shimmering on the metal arm. There was a moment where he expected Bucky to smooth it over, but when that cue was well over do by several seconds, Steve turned to look into the wall again.

“You looked good,” he said again, softer this time and after a few racing heartbeats, he felt Bucky’s cold fingers drag along his spine; an absent touch.

“Has Stark said anything about making progress?” Bucky asked, quiet and airy.

Steve shook his head once, the feathers in the pillow rustling as he did so, challenging the silence between them.

“What about that blood analysis?”

“Nothing,” Steve whispered and thought about how tomorrow would just be another check-in at the medical wing with more blood tests that didn’t go anywhere.

“They are gonna fix you, you know that right?” The hopeful tone on Bucky’s voice was enough for Steve to curl around himself, the weight in his chest expanding tenfold.

“Right,” Steve mumbled.

 

* * *

 

There was the grace of the Winter Soldier – and then there was the grace of Bucky Barnes. When the training drone Sparta-kicked his ass from the wooden platform and left him like a stranded turtle on its back two meters below, they were not even cut from the same cloth.

Like two parents watching their kids’ first football match, they were parked in their respective camping chair out in the sun. Steve sat with his casted leg resting on the cooler and to his right was Tony, tablet in one hand and misty glass of lemonade in the other. Behind them stood the Avengers facility like a grey shadow.

“It’s nice to see that you can look at him without looking like you’re suffering through a gut shot,” Tony pointed out.

“What?” Steve turned his head to the right, not even realizing the raised corners of his mouth until the small smile dropped from his face.

“You heard me.” Tony looked back at him and Steve saw the betraying twitch in the corner of his mouth. “He’s not made of glass.”

“No,” Steve agreed flatly, attention shifting forward just in time to see Bucky propping himself up using the shield and put up his left arm to block the incoming blow from the combat drone. Steve had fought the same robots enough times to know that they didn’t pull any punches. “But he still bruises,” he said.

“You’re right about that, but they’ll be gone before you can kiss them better.”

Steve knew that wasn’t true, that Bucky would probably still be in pain long after he had scrubbed his elbow and knees clean from the grass stains.

In the corner of his eye, Steve saw how Tony opened his mouth. “Is it just me or is he—”

Tony flexed awkwardly with the glass of lemonade still in hand, posing more like an art subject rather than a bodybuilder.

“—putting on muscle?” Steve finished with a small, lopsided smile.

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s been working out a lot,” Steve explained. “Three hours every morning, two in the evening.”

For months, Bucky hadn’t done anything else but to run his ten kilometers every morning. Literally one hour after he had agreed to this masquerade, Steve had found him in the gym working out with such dedication that it had become painfully transparent. Steve had seen right through him; seen the fear, the anxiety, the unease.

“He’s scared, you know,” Steve said and watched how Tony sat a bit straighter, eyebrows going up. “About picking up the shield.”

“He told you that?” Tony asked, mildly surprised.

“No, but I can tell.” Steve pursed his lips, face coming down with a frown and said with a heavy heart, “He didn’t say yes because he wanted to, he said yes because I asked him.”

“Hey, this isn’t forever. This thing,” Tony gestured toward him, “with you being this small and dark as a cloud 24/7, we’re gonna fix that, alright? And when we do, Bucket Barns can go back to his library life.”

It felt as if a needle pricked his heart at the mere mention of fixing him up and Steve couldn’t help but to look away, breathing out deeply though his nose as he watched Bucky in the distance.

“…is there anything to fix?” Steve asked with a shake of his head. “I mean, I was born like this. It was Dr. Erskine and Howard that made me into something else.” As he looked back at Tony, Steve saw the gleam of pity in his eyes. Big and tangible and impossible to ignore. “I might be a bit shorter than back in the days, but other than that, I look the same: I’m just a little bit crispier on the side.”

Tony snorted loudly, the laugh bubbling out of him. “ _That_ was a horrible joke.”

“But you still laughed,” Steve smirked.

“Horrible,” Tony repeat as he turned his nose forward, the smile slow to slide off his face.

In the distance, Wanda and Bucky did their best against Tony’s million dollar drones, the very earth beneath their chairs trembling from the magic she cast. She had come far in the last few months and it was hard not to be a little proud, because for each and every session she seemed to grow even more powerful and paired up with Bucky, they were a formidable fireteam.

“Are you afraid that you’re gonna be stuck like this?” Tony asked.

“I—yeah,” Steve said as he glanced at Tony. “The world has changed into the something that scares me more than Hitler and the Nazis,” he leaned back in the chair, sinking down heavy in the seat, “and I don’t know, but it feels like it’s 1941 again and I’m watching Bucky put on the uniform and leave to fight in a war I got no place be in.”

“You feel useless,” Tony said.

“Yes,” Steve said with a tired sigh, “and Bucky is doing what he has always been doing; he’s finishing my fights.”

“This is still your fight, and you can still do something about it, you’ll just have to get out of those casts first.” Tony nodded toward his leg that hadn’t seen the light of day for well over a month. “In the meantime, I might have to switch out a few vertebras in your boyfriend’s neck to metal with the way he keeps turning to look at you all the time.”

In that exact moment, Bucky did just that – looking their way, oblivious to the drone coming up from behind, sweeping him hard off his feet.  

Steve snorted more at the timing than anything. “Now _that_ wasn’t even funny,” he said.

“But you almost laughed,” Tony parroted with a genuine smile. “Besides, your boy needs an upgrade anyway.”

“Tony,” Steve said, sharpening his voice. “We’ve been through this before, he doesn’t want that so please, stop hassling him about it. He’s stressed as it is without you waiting to chop his arm off.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I won’t, mom. I’m just saying that when new Captain America over here wants a new shield arm with a freedom stamp rather than a communist one, I’ll be here ready and waiting.”

Steve shook his head. “I won’t tell him that.”

“Why not?”

“Because if it comes from me, he’ll say yes.”

Bucky was at a weird in-between place, still struggling with his footing here in the world. During their first week together in the future, he had quickly anchored himself to Steve and whatever he had asked him do to, Bucky had complied. It had made everything with the doctors so much more simple, but Steve recognized it as the control button it was and pushing it was like shoving Bucky back to square one. Independence was something he struggled with and it was only just a few months ago he had lost the tension in his shoulders and stopped waiting for orders.

Tony made a considerate pause, eyes narrowing. “I’m curious, has he always been like this with you?”

“Like what?” Steve asked.

“Saying yes to everything you ask him to do?”

“For as long as I can remember, yeah.” In that way, Bucky was the same, ready to go to the end of the world or tie a string around the moon if that was what Steve asked for. He didn’t look the same—didn’t even speak like he used to, but when it came to that fundamental aspect of their relationship, he was familiar.

“He always seems so sure when it comes to you,” Tony said with a crooked smile, words growing sincere. “He loves you a lot.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Steve deadpanned; his face cracking up when Tony snorted, accidently spilling the glass of lemonade all over his lap.

“Wow Rogers,” Tony grinned, “two jokes in one day – I’d almost say you’d caught fire again.”

 

* * *

 

Yesterday, the casts had finally come off.

The next morning, Steve dug out his running shoes from the depths of his wardrobe. For two months, he had worn nothing but socks and slippers, so there was a fair chance that his sparse shoe collection had suffered the same fate as his clothes. So Steve braced himself for that possibility as he was halfway to Narnia and already planning today’s run in his head.

Whatever energy, whatever motivation he had been loading up since yesterday afternoon was drained the moment he put on the shoes.

They were too big.

And not a little too big; they felt like clown shoes.

Steve felt the pressure building behind his eyes and he felt stupid as the urge to cry locked his throat tight. He sank down on the edge of the bed and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars, as if that was the only way of countering the need to bawl.

He breathed in deeply.

And exhaled just as heavily.

It was alright, he told himself. It was only a pair of shoes.

He could get a pair of new ones, but that wouldn’t happen today and he wanted to get out _today_. The summer was on its last verse and he needed to get that run done, to feel that he could still run a few miles without sagging like a wet noodle.

Fueled by frustration, Steve pushed himself up from the bed, easily toeing off his shoes and picked them up, steps lining him toward the trash bin by the desk and just as he was about to shove them down there, he froze.

On the desk laid yesterday’s newspaper and for a moment, their dark bedroom seemed brighter, as if illuminated by the light bulb above his head. Steve snatched the paper without a second thought and spent the next five minutes shredding it, stuffing his shoes full until they didn’t chafe at the heel.

He was on his knees, tying the laces as hard as he could when the door opened.

“You gonna go for a run?” Bucky asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” Steve said as he looked up at him. Bucky’s hoodie was a mottled grey from all the sweat, forehead glistening and damp hair wavy. “You wanna come along?”

“Sure,” Bucky said, not looking all too certain, “we going to the lake and back?”

“That was my plan,” Steve said as he rose to his full height and was met with a short nod. Together they headed for the front door and once outside, the wind blew cold. But not even the touch of autumn in the air could freeze the fire in Steve’s veins, the way the motivation had his heart beating faster.

When they reached their usual start right at the edge of the tree line, where the stone plating beneath their shoes turned to gravel, Bucky faced him with a frown. “You sure about this?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Steve shrugged and said, “I can’t just sit around all day waiting for Tony to figure something out. Besides, I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Okay,” Bucky said, forehead full with worried valleys. “We’ll take it slow, alright? It ain’t a race.”

“Slow is all you gonna get,” Steve said, flashing the bare shell of a smile and then he started running.

The first twenty steps of running felt good, like Steve hadn’t spent the last eight weeks stuck in a bed. But on the twenty-first step, that was when he felt lost the feel of weightlessness and instead felt his pulse going up, hammering in pace with the steps he took.

And next to him, Bucky was practically strolling. Steps high rather than long, just so that they would stay in sync. His loose hair bouncing up and down, breath not even strained and that was like fuel for Steve’s fire, seeing Bucky move so effortlessly in the corner of his eye.

Truth was, Steve wanted nothing more for them to run to the lake like they used to. Before everything, every morning had been a race: five kilometers disappearing in dust. Last one to touch the old oak by the jetty was a loser and Steve missed that, the easy rivalry that had so quickly found its way into their lives and made it even easier to fall back on old habits. Back then, the winner had gotten all the bragging rights and the morning run had put a happy stamp on their entire day.  

By the time they left the thin forest behind and reached the overgrown field, which felt like the longest stretch in human history and nothing like the two kilometers he knew it was, Steve was fighting for breath, sweat pouring through every pore and his leg—his leg _ached_. It was like he was breathing through a straw; his lungs hurt, his heels stung from where the too-large shoes were chafing, the newspaper in his shoes becoming downtrodden and useless.

But they were almost halfway, and Steve clung to that.

When they passed the field and emerged themselves into nature again, the lush greenery so thick that not even the blue sky was seen when he looked up, Steve told himself that they were more than half-way. Like a mantra, he mentally repeated _less than half, less than half_ as he couldn’t do nothing else but to stare ahead, focusing on one breath at the time.

If Bucky looked at him or even said anything, Steve didn’t hear him over the frantic beating of his heart or the ragged breathing. He ran as quickly as his body was able to, but even that felt slow. Like he was shuffling forward rather than running and every time he tried picking up the pace, his bad leg flared up in pain, echoing Dr. Cho’s recommendation to _not_ focus on an exercise that put a heavy strain on his freshly healed leg.

But this didn’t count as heavy exercising in Steve’s brain—it was running and it shouldn’t feel as crushing as it felt, like every muscle in his body was about to rupture from the strain.

He had done this every day since the ice; this was meant to be a piece of cake.

And then finally, finally, _finally_ Steve saw the lake – small and unimportant, mirror blank and calm, the rotten jetty was just _there_ , he just had to make it a few hundred more steps. Less than two hundred, maybe—it wasn’t far now, he just had to run a little bit longer and suddenly, the old, dying oak was all he saw, the edges of his vision blackening, the pressure building in his chest—

—Steve’s aching leg buckled beneath him, hands and knees scraping up on the gravel and dirt as he fell. If it hurt or stung or ached, he didn’t feel it, instead he gasped for breath and—and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t for the life of him _breathe._

Somewhere in the distance, he heard the gasp of what sounded like a dying animal, only to realize in the next moment that was him making all those noises. Dry and strained and absolutely panicked.

And when he looked up, all he saw was Bucky. Not the old oak with its massive branches hanging low and barren. Steve saw the helpless gleam in Bucky’s wide eyes, watched the way his lips moved, never seeming to stop and how his tongue shifted behind his white teeth. He focused on that, because that was all he could see with the way his head was locked in Bucky’s hands.

It could have been an eternity or a minute of Steve just gasping, watching, fighting until he finally heard something else that wasn’t himself.

“Breathe with me, in and out—just like that; good. Breathe, in and out—slowly now.” 

He listened, mirroring everything Bucky did. Breathing in and out through his mouth, shoulders going up and down with a tremble. Against his cheek, Steve felt Bucky’s warm palm and he felt himself leaning forward into that touch, fingers squeezed tight around Bucky’s wrists. The skin on Bucky’s arm was knotted from where he had pushed up the sleeve to his elbow, almost like he was freezing.

“You alright?” asked Bucky, his worry shining straight through.

Steve nodded once.

“You sure?”

Steve swallowed over the lump in his throat, nostrils flaring as he nodded jerkily.

“Dammit Steve,” Bucky breathed as he slowly lowered his hands, eyes wide with worry, putting an edge to his words. “You scared me.”

The wind blew through between them, pulling on their clothes.

“You pushed yourself too hard,” Bucky said.

“I know,” Steve croaked. He let go of the spasmodic hold on Bucky with a full body shudder, suddenly becoming aware of the blood smudged there, seeping into the grooves of the metal.  

“Let me help you up,” Bucky said and hoisted him up as if he was a feather, one arm looped around his midriff and Steve put all his weight on him in favor of relieving his aching leg. “Can you walk?” Bucky asked.

“I think so,” Steve mumbled and bit back a hiss just as Bucky leaned forward enough to dust Steve off. He pulled down the cuff of his hoodie, before he pressed it against Steve’s scraped up knees, swiping away the worst of the dirt and blood.

Bucky rose up to his full height, face still strained with worry. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, shaken before he took a trembling step, daring to put some weight on his bad leg and limped forward, dragging Bucky along with fists full of his hoodie.

His leg wasn’t broken, but his pride was. The back of his eyes stung, his throat felt painfully constricted and Steve wasn’t sure if he wanted to cry over the pain or at the fact that he had fucking failed. The old oak sat in the distance and he felt so utterly weak over not even being able to jog the full length of the run.

He had stumbled on the finish line, literally.

“I’m fine,” Steve whispered as he blinked and blinked and blinked, clinging close to Bucky as they began the slow walk back home.

Bucky put an arm around Steve’s shoulders, pulling him in close as he nosed Steve’s sweat-damp hair. “You did good,” he said gently, words coming out muffled. “You ran five kilometers.”

Someone once told Steve that love was like a cough: impossible to hide and with Bucky, that felt true. Because his love was distinct, present in every gaze; every touch and for the first time, Steve thought he was going to be crushed by it.

 

* * *

 

They weren't firemen waiting for the alarm to go off, but some days they had to leave in such a rush they almost wished they had a fireman’s pole.

After the incident in Italy six weeks ago, everything had been quiet on the horizon and the Avengers were left to do what they always did when the world didn’t need them – they trained. Every day they worked hard to become the well-oiled machine they needed to be.

And Steve, who had no place among magic, super punches and robot suits, had found a way to pull his straw to the stack – just like Tony said he would. Steve had always known there was paperwork around the Avengers; reports and statements that needed to be written and when there wasn’t that, there were ops to be planned, intel to go through, leads to follow up. So he did that, diving head first into a life he had previously shaken his head at, thinking that a desk job would never be his thing.

And it still wasn’t. Their pursuit for Rumlow was fruitless at best and Steve felt like he was trapped in a hamster wheel: hustling in order to make progress, doing the same thing over and over again and still expecting a different result every time. Maria Hill said it was a part of the job: the frustration, the quiet hours in between when they were just waiting for the next bomb to drop. It was during days like that where it felt as if he was about to be crushed by the big boulder left on his shoulders.

The thought of an armed maniac having enough weapons and ammunition to take down a small city didn’t make it any easier to sleep at night. It was impossible to not sit on needles and while Steve tried to find an outlet for all his frustration, it generally meant more work. If it hadn’t been for the summer’s quick demise or the ache in his leg or the cold that he had been running for the last week, Steve would have tried working out again. Instead he was forced to endure that kicked puppy look Bucky donned whenever he coughed and coughed until he was all flushed and woozy.

And then like a bolt out of the blue, it happened. Not in the way Steve had been losing sleep over but—

“—sand golems anyone?” Tony offered with a shrug, motioning toward the TV. Less than thirty seconds ago, he had barged in just as the pizza had reached the table, eyes and hair wild as he clapped his hands twice in rapid succession for Friday to turn on the TV. In the next moment, all eight of them had witnessed the live destruction of downtown Los Angeles by no other than giant rhino-looking creatures that looked like as if they had been crafted by sand and clay.

_Mystical sand creatures emerging from abandoned construction site,_ read one of the rolling banners on the newscast and Steve sat there slack jawed, thinking that the world couldn’t get any crazier with aliens and magic fires.

Tony slowly turned to the family and asked in that blunt manner of his, “So, anyone up for building some sand castles?”

The room burst open in a flurry of activity, familiar faces going left and right as they picked up whatever they deemed necessary on their way down to the gear room and Steve followed like a shadow, because the need to help; the desire to do anything bubbled wildly within him, pumping him up and sent the blood rushing in his ears.

Before he knew it, they were ready to go and Bucky stood before him, dressed in red, white and blue, helmet in hand. It wasn’t like watching Bucky in the suit reminded Steve of his place, because Steve battled the sense of complete helplessness every day, but there was a sadness in seeing Bucky have the shield slung on his back, ready to go and do something Steve couldn’t.

He leaned slightly to the side to catch a glimpse of the others boarding the jet and then he looked up at Bucky. “You alright?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky said with a frown that exposed the lie.

Steve wore a rueful smile as he said, “You look good.”

“Not better than you,” Bucky said, eyes crinkling as the corners of his lips went up, the smile brittle on his face. He took a step forward and leaned in just enough, right hand coming up behind Steve’s neck and then he was right in Steve’s space, lips coming together in a kiss. Short and chaste and gone before Steve even had the chance to press his lips back.

He looked at Bucky, who looked back at him.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Steve heard himself say.

Bucky scoffed, pulling further away. “Stupid?” he smirked. “I’m leaving all the stupid here at home.”

“Good,” Steve said airily.

“ _You coming, Shaggy?_ ” shouted Sam from the ramp, causing Bucky to glance over his shoulder and then back at Steve, the grin gone and replaced with something unreadable.

“You better hurry,” Steve said and mustered up a small, encouraging smile that fell the moment Bucky turned his back at him.

Less than fifteen minutes after Tony had stormed in, Steve sat alone in the living room with enough takeaway to feed half of New York. On the sofa next to him, Wanda’s sweater laid haphazardly thrown; next to the pizza boxes was Rhodey’s book with the grey bookmark; Bucky’s half-drunk smoothie cup stood forlorn on the coffee table.

“That certainly killed the party,” Tony said as he strolled into the room and up to the kitchen counter, hands already reaching for the pizza boxes.

“We should have gone with them,” Steve said evenly.

“No, we would only be in the way,” Tony countered as he opened the lid of one pizza boxes, closed it and opened the next one. “Besides, we are active non-combatants,” he reminded him casually.

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a heavy sigh.

“Don’t look so sullen, your boyfriend is gonna do fine.”

“He was nervous.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, half-smiling as he shot Steve a pointed look. “Nervous enough to kiss you when he thought we weren’t looking. It says a lot about how high he puts himself, kissing you like it’s the last time like that.”

Steve felt the tips of his ears burn. It hadn’t been a Bucky thing to do; it had been a nervous tick, a heat of the moment thing. While everyone knew just how quickly they had fallen heads over heels for each other, there was still something from the forties lodged in Bucky’s brain that made him wary about openly showing affection despite still knowing that the times had changed.

The kiss hadn’t been a goodbye, but more a case of good luck than anything. But at the same time, Steve realized that if someone figured out who the man behind the helmet was, then he supposed it had been a farewell, both to Bucky and the good reputation of Captain America.

 

* * *

 

But of course, Tony was right.

Even before the quinjet had touched home ground, the video of Captain America putting himself in harm’s way to give a squadron of army personnel enough time to escape an otherwise flat fate, had gone viral. As Steve watched the clip over and over again, watching how Bucky had _literally_ taken one of the gigantic sand rhinos by the horns, he did wonder what kind of stupid Bucky had left at home.

 

* * *

 

“You’re on YouTube.”

“Yeah?”

“Twenty-eight million views in four hours.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Bucky said from out the balcony, pouring sand out of his boot over the railing. “But it sounds good.”

“It is.” When Steve looked up at him, watching him through the open glass doors, it was as if the smile on his face was etched into his features. How he was well and truly glowing, much like the moon high in the sky. “I watched you, you know,” Steve said.

“Really, how?” Bucky asked as he stepped inside, eyebrows coming together.

Steve shrugged with a half-smile. “Mostly through satellites, but the jet gave us a few good angles. Rhodey got a feed broadcasting from his helmet as well, so I had my eyes on you.”

Bucky’s face twitched into an approving smile as he dropped his boots on the floor and dragged off the gauntlets, tossing them on the bed next to Steve.

“It felt good today,” Bucky said.

The confession tugged on the knot in Steve’s chest, draining the tiny smile on his face until there was nothing but the hollow shell left. As much as Steve tried to tell himself that this was good – a solid chance for Bucky to pay back for all the debts he believed he owed the world for past sins. For weeks now, Steve had worked the concept of Bucky as Captain America into his brain, but his heart hadn’t made the same progress. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t want to have it all back; the strength, the endurance, even the lack of privacy the future demanded. Steve would take it all if it meant that he would be able to fill out his uniform again and pick up the shield without thinking it was heavy.

“Yeah?” Steve watched as Bucky sank down in the bed next to him. Still dusty and sweaty from the fight, hair striped with dirt, still wearing the uniform.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, still smiling that proud smile. “I was nervous at first, but it went alright, didn’t it?” He propped himself up on his elbow, side turned toward Steve, his warm hand moving casually as he talked. “I mean, no one died. A dozen injured but Nat said that they would be alright.”

_And then there are the millions in infrastructural damage_ , Steve thought and looked away, down to the dark phone in his lap. “The doctors are optimistic, yeah. You did really good today.”

There was a pause, a moment where Steve expected Bucky to continue spilling his guts and when he didn’t, Steve looked back at him, only to see that he smiled that magnetic, no-holds-barred smile that Steve hadn’t seen the smoke of for months. That smile that was so fierce and undeniably Bucky; a smile that tugged and tingled deep and low in Steve’s belly.

There was a moment where they just looked at each other, where Steve saw all that want darkening Bucky’s eyes, turning his smile wolfish and hungry. Pride and confidence blooming into desire, sparking the atmosphere in between. It was an expression that reminded Steve that he was still attractive in Bucky’s eyes and that—

—that knowledge turned Steve’s stomach to water.

For the last months, he had been in too much pain, been too sick and too sad to even entertain the idea of undressing a body that almost made him throw up in his mouth every time he passed a mirror. Because beneath the draping clothes he wore, he was a collage of scars, both from the burns and skin graft operations. The thought that Bucky had already seen him as bare as the day he was born; that he had already run his fingers over the thick ridges of each pink scar as he had massaged the scar lotion into the blemished skin, didn’t ease the tension rigging Steve’s body stiff.

“C’mere,” Bucky mumbled warmly as he pushed himself upright and reached for Steve, fingers intertwining as he dragged him closer and up on his lap, letting Steve straddle him.

“Hey,” Bucky said as if it was the only pick-up line needed, head cocked to the side and smile far too pleased.

“Hi.” Steve felt his palms sweat from where he had them placed on Bucky’s broad chest, feeling the rough material of the suit beneath his fingers.

Up-close, Bucky smelled like after a day at the beach.

“Your heart is beating fast.”

“It’s your fault.”

“You nervous?” Bucky teased, voice low as a whisper, hands skimming from Steve’s sides and all the way down to the apples of his ass before giving a tight, sudden squeeze that sent Steve jerking closer.

“I’m not used to seeing you like this,” he said a little strained, arms coming up around Bucky’s neck.

“Like this?” Bucky breathed hotly against his neck, stamping it with kisses that had Steve squirming in his lap, shoulders coming up in reflex as the skin on his bare arms pimpled.

“In the suit.”

“You like it?”

“Yes.” Cut away all the complexity that otherwise clouded the full picture and that was the truth. He liked the look of Bucky in uniform and for a few heated moments, Bucky did an amazing job on disconnecting Steve’s brain. For a blissful moment, Steve didn’t see the red, blue and white — he saw Bucky, horny as hell, jumpstarted by all that battle induced adrenaline; mouth coming on eager and traveling upwards by each kiss, lips pressing against the line of Steve’s jaw as his hands gently kneaded what little flesh his ass had to offer.  

Steve raked his fingers through Bucky’s hair on the back of his head, nails scratching his warm scalp as he squirmed in Bucky’s lap, head tilting to the side when Bucky locked his lips tight on the side of his neck, sucking on the delicate skin there.

The more he writhed in Bucky’s arms, the more aware he became of how hard Bucky was. Almost three months of celibacy and there was so much fire beneath Bucky’s skin that Steve thought they would both go up in flames.

For the first time in weeks, they were closer; more at ease than they had been in weeks; like the weird had been cut out and the mist surrounding Steve had cleared. Because for the last weeks, Steve had been doing just that – walked under water, putting Bucky at an arm’s length, leaving their relationship in with a nervous tinge that hadn’t been there since back in the thirties.

“You ready to take on Captain America?” Bucky asked, voice so playful and light and _giddy_ , that Steve could practically see Bucky’s big grin against the side of his neck, and yet – Steve’s heart dropped like a rock. The warm feeling in his stomach freezing over in an instant, his breath catching in his throat and then they were as far apart again as they had been since the jog.

Bucky stilled immediately and when Steve looked him in the eye, he didn’t see a trace of eagerness on Bucky’s face anymore.

“ _Shit_ , I’m sorry,” Bucky said quickly, eyes growing wide in embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have said that, I was just running my damn mouth.”

“I know.”

Whatever electricity that had stirred in the air around them discharged within the blink of an eye. Bucky’s grip went lax and sexless.

Against his chest, Steve felt the frantic pounding of Bucky’s heart.

Bucky gulped. “Do you—”

“I’m tired,” Steve blurted out so quick that it almost sounded like a lie, pulling away, shoulders slumping as he shook his head, sighing. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Bucky said, managing a kind smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “We should sleep.”

Steve nodded softly as he slid off Bucky’s lap, scooting over to his side of the bed again and crawled quickly under the covers, feeling the weight of Bucky’s eyes on him. He settled back against the pillow and met Bucky’s gazed, saw the small smile that wasn’t all there on his face and mirrored it.

As Bucky looked away, he ran his hand through his hair before he got up and shed the uniform jacket, carelessly throwing it over the chair next to the chest of drawers. “I’m gonna shower,” he said and disappeared into the bathroom.

Steve listened to the lock click and how the water started to run soon after that. He slowly sat up and slung his legs over the edge of the bed, picking up the gauntlets Bucky had thrown earlier and walked over to the jacket. He folded it neatly, placed the gloves on top, collected the boots and placed them neatly under the chair, before he slid quietly back into bed.

By the time Steve finally fell asleep after what felt like an hour of tossing and turning, the bathroom door was still closed.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Steve saw when he opened his eyes the next day, was the breakfast tray waiting on the nightstand. A tall glass of juice, a bowl of diced fruit, two sandwiches with ham and cheese, and a steaming cup of what smelled like coffee. His stomach rumbled, his mouth felt parched and it was with a tired groan he reached for the misty glass, propping himself up on his elbow and bringing it to his lips. He drank in big gulps until there was nothing left but the clinkering ice cubes at the bottom.

It wasn’t until he put the glass back on the tray that he realized he wasn’t alone. When he glanced over his shoulder, there was Bucky on his side of the bed. Dressed in the regular black t-shirt and red gym shorts, dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail; his back against the headboard.

“Good morning,” Bucky said with a gentle smile, only giving him a sideway glance from where he sat with the tablet in his lap.

Steve pushed himself upright, brushing his wild hair from his face. “Hey,” he said, eyes roaming over Bucky. “You made me breakfast?”

In response, Bucky hummed warmly, the faintest of curl put onto his lips.

“Thank you.” Steve felt something that wasn’t pain unfurl in his chest and asked, “What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“You already been at the gym?”

“Yeah. I was surprised when I came back and you were still asleep.”

“I was tired,” Steve said and he still was. There was the gravel of sleep still coating his eyeballs, a sluggishness in his limbs, the need to yawn coming onto him. He stretched his arms above his head and sank down against the pillow again, fingers coming up to his face to rub the sleep from his eyes.

Bucky shifted next to him, metal fingers flexing and unflexing. “About yesterday…” he began carefully, like he was choosing his words. “I’m sorry for what I said… I was just so worked up and… yeah, you know.” He shook his head and gave a tired sigh, almost like he was sick of himself.

“It’s alright, Buck,” Steve said and meant it, looking his way. It had been a heat of the moment thing, drunk on the success from his first mission.

“You sure?” Bucky didn’t look all too sure with his eyebrows creased, lips lined thin. There was a severity to his gaze, something deeply apologetic that put the sincerity to his words.

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Okay,” Bucky said with a slow considerate nod. “Good.”

Steve passed him a thin, assuring smile. Yesterday had been overwhelming, for both of them and he was happy that it was behind them. Because next time couldn’t feel as heavy, could it?

“You know… I was thinking, maybe we could ask Friday to order you a pair of new running shoes?” Bucky asked, the smile creeping onto his face mild. “And some new clothes,” he added, eyeing the white t-shirt that was like a nightgown on Steve.

Steve glanced up at the ceiling. “Friday?”

“ _I’ll place an order containing a multitude of various sizes for you to try on_ ,” came her response; an eerie reminder that she was always there. “ _Any particular clothes you’d like me to order?_ ”

“Casual.” Steve said and considered for a second, catching the sight of Bucky’s approving look in the corner of his eye. “And sports.”

“ _Yes, Captain Rogers. Anything you need Sergeant Barnes?_ ”

Bucky shook his head.

“ _I’ll have the products delivered to you ASAP_.”

 

* * *

 

The clothes appeared just after lunch. The gigantic box contained mostly just casual basic garments; one-colored t-shirts, a few pair of slacks and some jeans, underwear and socks. Friday hadn’t joked when she said that there would be a multitude of sizes to pick from and when Steve went through them all, it felt like a small defeat when even smallest size looked baggy on him.

But at the very least, they looked significantly better on him than his old wardrobe. The one that was now stuffed onto the top shelf of the closet, the one he couldn’t reach without pulling out a chair. In one way, getting rid of the old and bringing in the new, made the mist around him seem thicker, the weight on his shoulders heavier.

“You know,” Bucky said from where he sat on the edge of their bed, surrounded by a dozen garments with their tags still on, smiling that foxy smile of his. “If you want your shirts tight again you might have to shop at the kid’s section,” he joked.

Steve cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes into small slits, and just like that, Bucky’s smile dropped to the ground, eyes going from playful to mortified within a blink, his jaw coming loose as he realized he had hit an all too sore spot.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he blurted out, hand coming up to almost smack himself in the forehead. “I’m an idiot.”

“Well, you said it yourself,” Steve muttered, balling up the too large t-shirt in his hands.

“ _Steve_ , I was trying to be funny. I’m sorry.”

“Well, you weren’t.”

“I know and I’m sorry,” Bucky said, the corners of his mouth almost peaking down, “it was a low blow.”

“It was,” Steve agreed firmly.

“I’m saying all the wrong things today,” Bucky flustered, the hand on his forehead sliding down his face, almost like he wanted to hide.

“Yes, you are,” Steve said.

Bucky sighed as he ran his hand back up through his hair, a few dark curls coming loose from the ponytail. He stared at Steve with that look of utter despair and said, “I just… I just want you to be happy. You’ve been so damn sad lately and I’m sorry, I didn’t think your clothes were such a touchy subject.”

“It’s not the clothes,” Steve dismissed in such a fierce manner that Bucky’s shoulders curled inward, as if he was trying his best to make himself as small as he possibly could. “I just—,” Steve made a frustrated fist, the words escaping him, “this feels so irreversible.”

“But Stark said—”

“—I _know_ what Tony said, but do you really think there is anything to fix?”

“Steve—”

“—I was born like this,” Steve fired back, gesturing flippantly down the skeleton body he was currently stuck in.

“And you absolutely hate being like this,” Bucky said, carefully neutral in a way that tossed a bucket of water on Steve’s fire, calming him down to a simmer.

Steve tossed the balled up shirt at Bucky, hitting him square in the chest. “Ten points to Captain Obvious,” he said dryly as he turned away, heart beating hard in the same rhythm of the steps carrying him away from Bucky and the cramping feeling of finality.

“I’m sorry, Steve— _wait,”_ was all he heard before he slammed the door close after himself.


	4. Que Sera, Sera

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

“I’m sorry, Cap.”

And that was it, the end.

Steve’s heart shattered with a hollow crack and perhaps Tony and Helen heard it, too; the crunching sound as the shards turned to dust. It fell with such a velocity that Steve felt it in his gut, like all the air got sucked out of him. For coming on four months, Steve had had the time to swallow the hard pill; to bite the sour apple; to realize that this abstract absurdity was just as irreversible as his new wardrobe made it feel.

Dr. Cho ducked her head as if she had found the most amazing thing at the tip of her toes; journal chart clutched tight to her chest. “There are still fragments left of the serum in your blood,” she explained, careful in a way as if she didn’t want to be the spark that lit the whole room on fire. “But we don’t know if what’s left is enough if we were to expose you to vita-rays again.”

“We don’t want to take that chance,” Tony said with his chin high, fingers intertwined in his lap.

All Steve could do was to nod as he rolled down the sleeve of his shirt, focusing on the soft fabric beneath his fingertips, the slight stretch of his skin from the white band aid as he crooked his elbow to reach the buttons on the cuff.

The silence was suffocating. Steve was almost expecting the windows and door come bursting open by the sheer pressure within, much like his heart was succumbing beneath the weight in his chest. He felt their stares, the way their worry turned into something palpable. Something that muted the rest of the world and made everything about himself deafening, like if they could hear the way his blood roared in his ears or the sound of his world crashing down.

“Was that all?” he asked stiffly, looking up at them.

Dr. Cho sucked in a nervous breath. “Do you have any questions for us, concerns?”

“No, thank you.”

The chair creaked as Tony stood up, hands coming down into his pockets as he turned to Helen. “Could you give us a minute, doc?”

She gave a curt nod. “Of course,” she said and flashed a smile of courtesy before she turned on her heel and strode toward the door.

The moment the door clicked and they were alone, Tony was on him. “First,” he said with a bracing sigh, his hands going up, up, up as he spoke a thousand words per minute. “You’re still an Avenger, alright? This is still your team. I’m not kicking you off the bus because you shrunk in the wash.”

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve said, hand smoothing over the buttoned cuff before he looked up, their gazes aligning. “But you know what this means,” he said and couldn’t help the sorrow bleeding onto the words.

Tony’s shoulders slumped as he exhaled. He pinched the bridge of his nose, breathed in and then out. “Yeah,” he agreed solemnly.

“For how long do you think we can keep this up?” Steve asked and focused on the facts. Because facts were easy; if he thought about numbers and consistencies and estimations, he didn’t have to think about the pain in his chest or the pressure behind his eyes or the shaking of his hands.

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out. For now, let’s run with this for as long as we can. We need all the help we can get if we’re ever gonna catch Rumlow.”

“Okay.”

“What do you think he’ll say?” Tony asked and Steve knew exactly what he meant.

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. He thought of Bucky’s wary look whenever he was about to pick up the shield for a training session when Steve was on the sidelines. “But he’ll keep the shield for as long as I ask him to.”

A look of tragic admiration crossed Tony’s face. “You’ll do that?”

“It’s what the world needs, isn’t it?”

Tony clapped him on the shoulder with a pitying smile and after that, Steve just folded. He excused himself with the petty words that his office waited for him and left, not daring himself to continue a conversation that had already put him on the verge of tears.

There had been no bargaining, no begging, no plea. There had been a part of him that had built a wall around that last candle of hope, but to hear Helen and Tony quit on him had been like a tornado blowing through. Immediate and devastating, leaving nothing but a heap of mayhem behind. Because what right did he have to ask them to spend more time, more money in order to have the show pony land a place in the big-horse race? They were being considerate, they knew their boundaries and that further experimentation could have him end up like Dr. Banner—or worse, six feet deep.

They had been nothing but kind and generous, but Steve couldn’t help but to clench his fists the moment he slammed the door to his office shut.

For the last few months, the possibility that he would one day pick up the shield had made it easier to roll out of bed every morning. Now the weight on his shoulders felt colossal, like a piece of him had just been ripped off, leaving him to wither and shrivel in pain.

_Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,_ he thought, chanting it like a mantra until that was all that echoed in his head as he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Weeping about it would only acknowledge the futile state he was in; the final resignation.

He swallowed down the lump in his throat and angrily wiped away any stray tears from his cheek as he crossed the final steps to his desk, plunging down in the chair.

He breathed in.

And out.

Again, and again, and again until he could hear over the frantic beating of his heart. He slowly reached for one of the many folders on his desk and opened it with a shuddering sigh. This was easier than being sad.

There were ops to be planned; reports to be written, read and approved; official statements that needed his signature and Steve did all of that until the autumn sun painted the sky blood red outside the big windows, shining an orange light into the dull office.

There was a soft knock on the door right before it slid open, revealing Bucky with his cautious smile, dressed in the uniform pants and a black t-shirt. The entirety of his right arm was a bright purple, a receipt from battles passed. “Hey,” he said, his voice warm. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” Steve watched as Bucky stepped over the threshold, gleaming fingers flexing and unflexing as he closed the door with his right hand. “What do you want, Buck?” Steve asked.

“It’s about Rebecca,” Bucky said.

Steve’s gaze landed low, fingers aligning the papers before him, edge to edge. “Yeah?” he said and looked up.

“Yeah,” Bucky breathed, not looking all too sure from where he stood in the center of the taupe carpet. “I,” his scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck; wary smile fading quicker than the last glimpses of daylight. “I asked Vision to keep an eye on her and yesterday there was an update on her medical record at Brooklyn Hospital.”

Steve felt his gut twist in a foreboding manner.

“Apparently she fell in her home,” Bucky explained, voice not shedding an ounce of emotion, but his worried eyes told Steve everything he needed to know. “She broke her hip and was found a day later on her kitchen floor by a neighbor.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said.

Bucky shuffled closer, licked his lips and looked away as he frowned, out the window and at the orange sky. “I was thinking… maybe I could reach out to her?” he asked, gaze returning to Steve’s. “Write her a letter or something, you know… before it’s too late.”

“A letter?”

“Yeah, or I don’t know. I thought we could maybe figure it out together,” Bucky said with a small smile that had all his heart in it, eyes practically gleaming with hope.

And this time, it was Steve’s turn to look away, down to the pencil in his hand that he had practically white knuckled. The skin on his fingertips prickled at the sudden loss of pressure.

Even before the wardrobe argument, it felt like Steve had been walking down a steep hill, the incline hurrying his steps, only to be pulled down faster by menial events that in turn snowballed and turned into something bigger. Something he couldn’t ignore, something that was always at the corner of his eye and at the back of his mind. Like a devil on his shoulder, reciting old sins, criticising Bucky.

Steve’s world had tilted, his perspective coming askew and as silly as it was, Bucky’s ill-placed joke about the clothes had cut Steve’s fuse short, leaving him to frown rather than to smile on most days. It was like it had put Bucky under the microscope and if it wasn’t something Bucky did that fueled his anger, it was something he said that stroked Steve the wrong way.

Because it was easy to be angry. It was just there, bubbling up without warning.

Bucky was always too worried, too handsy, too close and that irked a nerve in Steve that he hadn’t thought existed. It was like a bruise, one Bucky repeatedly kept touching by just being there. Hard and unforgiving and it just hurt.

And the worst part was that Steve knew his anger was unjustified – unfair and misplaced, but it was just there, like a fire burning everything good out of him. Because in it’s own twisted way, it felt good to keep Bucky at an arm’s length, to push roughly rather than gently; to have Bucky feel what he felt, that profound pain in the center of his chest. Heavy like a weight, painful at each and every breath.

“Bucky.” Steve scrubbed a hand over his face and exhaled heavily, nostrils flaring as he looked Bucky in the eye. “You’re a wanted man,” he said firmly. “It doesn’t work like that.”

For almost a year, Bucky had never expressed any desire to explore the world. In the beginning, Steve had practically had to drag him out the door for something as simple as walking a lap around the building.

The Winter Soldier was since after the fall of SHIELD, the number one wanted on Interpol’s superhuman list. Every month Tony and his minions were shuffling enough money through overseas accounts that one could almost believe they were laundering money, when they in fact were only bribing the staff workers of the facility to keep their mouths shut. They were pouring thousands of dollars just so that Bucky could have some freedom around the premises, instead of locking him up in a padded room.

And the bare thought that he wanted to risk that in any way sent the alarms blearing in Steve’s head. The irrelevant fear that the government could somehow, in some way, trace the letter and how that would lead back to them, unearth the skeleton they had hidden so far back in the closet that they were on the verge of losing themselves along the way.

“Okay,” came the quiet reply, almost as if Bucky found himself out on thin ice. When Steve watched the hope go out of his eyes, the way his shoulders went down and lips pursed in defeat, Steve thought he looked like a kicked dog. Confused, not quite daring to inch closer, just like he had been days after the wardrobe argument. “Just thought I’d ask.”

“And now you asked,” Steve said with a harsh glare, the words just slipping out. “Anything else?”

There was a pause, a cringe-worthy stretch of silence where Bucky seemed torn between wanting to dart toward the door or take the bull by the horn.

“How did it go today?” he finally asked, low and careful and eyes downcast, brows knitted together; one hand on the door handle, like he was ready to escape. “With Stark and Helen, I mean.”

Steve ran his tongue on the back of his teeth and looked down on the papers on his desk. _Collateral damage caused by superhumans,_ read the fat title and for a second, all Steve heard was his own hammering heart. “Same as usual,” he said flatly.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said and Steve heard how much he meant it.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Steve thought about taking it back, because it was a letter.

A small, stupid letter.

In hindsight, he realized that he was cruel, that it was unfair. But the next time he was in Bucky’s presence, the irritation came back without prompt and then it felt justified again, like a punishment; it felt like a fight where standing back went against every instinct.

 

* * *

 

Most days, Steve thought about Peggy. A few weeks back, there had been a point where the birch leaves had reached that particularly bright shade of red that reminded him of the lipstick she used to wear. Because red—red had always been her color. It had brought out the fire in her eyes, the summer freckles on her nose.

And Steve missed her with all his heart. It was funny because for as much as he loved Bucky, Steve had never imagined a future with him, not as with Peggy. Because back then, there hadn’t been a tomorrow for guys doing what they were doing. And now when he suddenly had it, seventy-odd years later in a time where it was celebrated with parades and rainbows, he had a hard time figuring out what he wanted. And more importantly, what could they have? On paper, the only numbers Bucky had to his name was the multiple lifetime sentences he had to await the day the law picked up his trail. But until then, he was to remain on the facility grounds, only let out unless the world had some trouble spinning. The price of freedom, Steve thought. By tying him to one place by keeping him away from a judge and jury, they robbed him of the chance to repent in the eyes of the law; of the chance to maybe have a normal life somewhere far down the line.

What Steve had wanted with Peggy had always been clear as day. A big house with a white fence on a quiet street, a kid or two, and with the shield hanging on the wall.

As he drove down the gravel road leading home, Steve thought about how it would never be that simple with Bucky. The garage doors slid open without prompt as he drove up and inside, parking the car at the same spot he had taken it from hours before. He killed the engine, extracted the keys and plucked his bag from the passenger seat before he practically had to jump out of the gigantic car.

He shut the door, rounded the SUV and that was when he saw Bucky, sitting on the second step of stairs that lead inside. Dark hair loosely gathered and tied back, and already dressed for bed.

Bucky locked up and closed the notepad in his lap, dry lips already curling into a meek smile. “Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” Steve said as he walked closer, eyeing the rubbed out cigarette butts next to Bucky. He narrowed his eyes and asked, “You still awake?”

“Yeah.” Bucky pushed himself upright and descended the one step of stairs. Four months of this, and Steve still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that he had to look up at Bucky. “I was waiting for you.”

“Yeah?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Bucky said, looking a bit sheepish with those kind eyes and muted smile. “And I wanted to know how your class went.”

Steve renewed his grip on the shoulder bag and shrugged before he passed Bucky, the smell of smoke burning in his nose. “It was repetitive.”

“Uh-uh,” Bucky said, tailing him like a lost puppy, steps just as long and hurried as Steve’s. “But will you still go back next week?”

“Probably.”

It had been Tony’s idea, but it had been Sam that had pushed him to sign up. Because for as long as people believed that it was Steve Rogers in that star-spangled suit, people wouldn’t look for a one-foot shorter and hundred-and-fifty-pound lighter version of him. Besides, on the driver license Tony had handed him just over a week ago, the name read Grant Rogers and that made him feel like someone else.

Today had been the first day he had set a foot outside the facility grounds and he hadn’t been prepared for just how invisible it made him feel. He had literally sat in a classroom with twenty other students, even the kid behind him had worn a shirt with the classic shield insignia. But he had gotten nothing – no funny looks, no odd stares or awkward approaches. The teacher had even asked for his name thrice in rapid succession.

Steve had just blended, merged into the same crowd he had spent more than sixty years in the ice to protect, only to now find himself to be one of them. Defenseless against all the evil out there, whether hidden in plain sight or concealed in the dark.  

And that was hard, because for as much as he was just another drop in the bucket, it didn’t feel like he fitted in. It was the same, nagging feeling that had chewed on the edges of his mind since he had taken his fair share of the paperwork months back. It wasn’t like he was a crucial cog in the machine, because this — reading, signing, sending documents — could be done by any fool and it probably had been before. Tony had just been so hellbent on cutting a place for Steve, that someone else surely had to move out of their way to make room. He felt like the last friend at an already crammed dinner table, sitting with one shoulder in trying to get anything done, awkward and all thumbs.

“Well, did you draw anything?” Bucky asked behind him, voice carefully gentle in such a way that Steve could practically see his timid smile before him. It was odd, to exist in a place in between sadness and gratitude, because cut the corners and unwrap the paper, and he was grateful, despite all that ill will and anger. He was grateful for what Bucky did, for stepping up and doing the right thing.

But how could the right thing _hurt_ so much? It was constant, like a suckerpunch every time he saw Bucky wearing the suit and like a slap on the face when he didn’t.

After months of hurting, it had become frustrating and in the end, it was easier to be angry.

“It was mostly just theory,” Steve said flatly as they left the narrow corridor behind and almost leapt up the stairs to their private quarters, because Bucky was right behind him—close, intense, desperate and so _damn_ kind.

“Did you get any homework?”

On the last step, Steve turned around so briskly that Bucky almost bounced into him. The air stilled between them and what little harmony that existed, withered.

For a long, aimless moment, all they did was to stare at each other, their roles now reversed as Steve looked down on Bucky—Bucky who looked so bottled up, like it took everything he owned not to move.

“Do you wanna head to bed?” Bucky asked eventually like he waited for Steve to say something, his voice bordering into a whisper and cracking at the end with hopeful desperation.

Steve looked away, putting a lid on the boiling kettle inside him. “I need to finish a few things in my office first,” he said firmly. “For tomorrow. It’s a big day.”

And that wasn’t a complete lie. It was a mission that had been in the works for the last few weeks; a month worth of leads surrounding the sand golems that had popped up in Los Angeles that would hopefully come to a satisfying end.

When Steve looked at Bucky, he could almost spot the protest through his parted lips. _But it’s in the middle of the night,_ and it was. When Steve had left New York city well over an hour ago, the clock had been two hours shy from midnight.

“Okay,” Bucky said after another breath of silence, mustering up that well-practiced smile. “I’ll wait for you then.”

 

* * *

 

Five hours later, Steve finally slid into bed. Just after having fluffed up the pillow and laid the duvet the way he wanted, he felt the mattress shift slightly behind him and in the next, he felt Bucky’s cold fingers brush across his shoulder blade. A gentle, sweeping caress.

And then it was gone.

 

* * *

 

Some days, they lost.

Steve strode up the ramp of the quinjet and stopped dead in his tracks when he met Wanda, all downcast eyes and arms wrapped around herself. “Are you alright?” he asked, gentle hand already reaching out to touch her elbow.

Wanda’s shoulders rose with a tremble, gaze skimming low almost like she was glancing at his collarbones, not quite mustering up the courage to look him in the eye. “It was a close call today,” she said, sighing like all the energy just went out of her.  

“You did what you could.”

Her throat bobbed as she gave one, small nod.

“Where’s Bucky?” Steve asked.

“Back there,” said Wanda as she glanced over her shoulder and into the belly of the jet, tucking a stray lock behind her ear. “He’s sleeping.”

Steve smiled a small, encouraging smile as his hand moved up to give her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Thank you.”

Today had been one of those days where the Avengers hadn’t won. While they necessarily hadn’t failed the world, they had failed each other—Steve had failed them. Because it had been him at the helm for tracking down the leads that had ultimately taken the Avengers to the middle of nowhere.

Steve had sat next to Maria when he had watched his friends—family almost get ripped to shreds. And that had felt surreal, sitting on the other end of the screen, watching from a thousand miles away as the guy on the row behind them rustled his bag of potato crisps and chewed and chewed and chewed, just like it had been a common action flick rolling, not some live feed of the Avengers being trapped two hundred meters underground in some twisted labyrinth.

They had walked straight into a trap and it was Steve’s fault. It was his fault for never thinking that it was too easy as they had followed the crumbs left by the Los Angeles attack.

Steve ignored the heavy feeling in his gut as he walked further into the jet and true to Wanda’s words, there was Bucky. On the floor out of all places, gingerly draped in a crimson blanket and on his side. Eyes closed and dark hair tousled, draped wildly over the arm he rested his head on.

Yesterday’s goodnight filled his head as Steve approached, steps slow and measured. He stopped right beside Bucky, looking down on him and watched how he cracked one eye open, the left corner of his mouth twitched once.

“You alright?” Bucky asked, sounding nothing but exhausted.

Steve exhaled harshly through his nose, like he couldn’t believe the question. “I’m fine, Buck,” he said dryly. “Saw what happened to you though.”

Two hours later and his heart was still practically lodged in his throat. When he had watched Bucky getting knocked into the next Tuesday by a giant sand monster, yesterday’s blunt words turned into a fresh regret. Just like the sand beast had dragged Bucky like a dirt rag across the ground, Steve’s hard edges had been honed down in an instant. He had watched with a sense of dread, his stomach had twisted and heart gone cold, fully believing that Bucky would be swept off mortal coil with yesterday as their last memory together.

But Bucky was Captain America. The title came with the air of victory and just like that, Steve’s thorns grew out again.   

“Piss poor luck,” Bucky mumbled, eyelids drooping.

Steve sank down to his knees, his face a mask of tight lines. “Doc’s gonna want to look you over. Sam’s just first up.”

“Sam alright?”

“Just a bruised wrist probably.”

“Good,” Bucky muttered. “Idiot deserved it.”

Bucky was dusted pale, sand and dirt and blood caked onto his skin. It looked like he had just hustled through the sandstorm of the century, scraped raw and bloody.

Steve filled his hand with the edge of the blanket, lifting it and saw how Bucky cradled his left arm to his chest. “Are you alright?”

“Just bluer than the suit,” Bucky said in the same mumbling voice.

“And your arm?”

“Hurts.”

“They’ll fix you,” Steve said with a sigh, glancing over the shoulder just in time to see Dr. Cho and her medical team arrive with the gurney.

 

* * *

 

“Hey man, what’s up?”

Steve looked up from the cutting board, from the sliced tomatoes and cut off sides of the toast, eyes darting up to catch Sam shuffling into the kitchen.

“Cooking,” Steve said with neutral smile, eyeing the cast on Sam’s right wrist. “How’s the arm?”

“Sore.” Sam maneuvered with the crispness of a hundred-year-old onto the barstool opposite Steve, nose wrinkled and teeth gritted. “Tail bone, too. Remind me to never land on my ass again.”

“You took a good hit.”

“Yeah,” Sam muttered as he leaned back against the chair and Steve was reminded all over again what a close call it had been. Maybe if he had questioned the amount of breadcrumbs left in the wake of the Los Angeles incident, Sam wouldn’t be in a cast until Christmas and Bucky wouldn’t be put under. Because that was what things had come to, letting him sleep it off when the pain got too bad. Bucky had said that using the arm was like a hangover, the more he used it, the more pain he would be in the next day.

And that was something that hollowed out Steve’s chest for another reason than envy. Because how much better were they than Hydra and the Russians, when they had reached such an extreme just to have Bucky up and fighting the next day? It was a temporary fix to a seemingly permanent problem.

“I’m sorry for what happened,” Steve said.

Sam straightened with a gentle smile. “Even the best of us makes mistakes,” he said. “What is important was that we got out of there alive.”

Steve ducked his head. “You’re right.” Lost amidst the anger and the frustration and the twinge of guilt, was the only thing that truly mattered. Even though they had escaped by the skin of their teeth, they were alive and fit to fight another day.

And that he hadn’t thought of that surprised him to such an extent that he couldn’t help but to smile weakly. “I needed to hear that,” Steve said and watched the grin explode over Sam’s face.

“You’re beating yourself too hard, man.”

Steve made a noncommittal hum and motioned toward the bag of bread. “You want a sandwich?” he asked.

“No no, thank you,” Sam said gently and held Steve’s gaze for a second too long, enough for the foreboding sensation to sink low in Steve’s stomach. “You know; I was just over at Bucky.”

Steve looked down at the cutting board again, the smile practically gliding off his face. “Doc woken him up again?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, sounding uncertain. “You didn’t know?”

“I’ve been in meetings all day,” Steve replied evenly.

“He asked about you,” Sam said in his cop voice and Steve could feel his eyes on him, the worry projecting itself in hot beams. “He’s worried.”

Steve sighed as he picked up another slice from the bread bag, laying it out to cut off the corners. “Is he alright?”

“Just a bit woozy from the elephant drugs,” Sam told him. “But he said you’ve been avoiding him. Something about a wardrobe fight?”

“I’ve been busy,” Steve said flatly. “We’ve all been.”

“Yeah, I know man, I know. It’s just that…” Sam spread his hands, palms facing the roof. “We’ve all felt this little tremor between the two of you.”

Steve looked him straight in the eye, grip going white around the knife, words coming out cooler than intended. “We got a few things to work through, but we’ll handle it.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Sam said with a neutralizing shrug, voice coming out soft and treading. “So you’ll go and talk to him later today?”

Steve nodded stiffly. “Yeah,” he said.

“Good. Because someone needs to go and put a cork in that damn sap tree,” Sam joked lightly, smile half and earnest and Steve he knew exactly what Sam meant. “He’s no fun when he’s all blue.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Steve said and nodded toward the bread bag again, half desperate to move on from the topic. “You sure you don’t want something to eat?”

“No, I’m fine,” Sam said as he started to push himself up, face going tight in a pained grimace. “I got a date with the next lunatic soon.”

“Stark?”

“Yeah,” Sam breathed, having gotten back up on his feet. “Mr. Philanthropist Playboy said something about a new gadget and upgrading the wings and that was enough to haul my bruised ass off the bed.”

Steve’s heart sank. Of course, now that Stark was liberated from the Petri dishes and Erlenmeyer flasks, he could pick up where he left off, which meant upgrades for everyone.

“Sounds cool,” Steve said, trying to brush it off but it only ended up not sounding like himself at all.

It wasn’t cool that everyone was moving on to new, cooler things while the most exciting thing Steve had these days was when he managed to run out of all the ink in a pen and took off the plastic on a new one.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Bucky came to him. Late at night, bruised black and woozy and not all there, smile unguarded as he appeared in the doorway to their bedroom.

Steve stiffened against the headboard. “Who let you out?” he asked; the papers in his hand going down, the frown going up.

“No one,” Bucky confessed flatly. He moved sluggishly, steps lagging and low as he walked further into the bedroom, the door sliding shut behind him. For a few long, tangible seconds, Steve stared at him like he couldn’t believe his eyes as Bucky rounded the bed like it was just another night, collapsing on his side of the bed with a heavy sigh.

“If the doc hasn’t cleared you, then you shouldn’t be here,” Steve said cooly.

Bucky rolled over to his side, right arm shoved beneath the pillow and looked up at Steve, eyes dark and dull in the sparse light of the bedstand lamp. “I didn’t want to be alone,” he said as if it was as simple as that.

“You’re still dusty,” Steve pointed out as he sized him up. Bucky was still in the uniform pants, still in the black t-shirt from the day before. He even had the IV cannula on the back of his hand and Steve thought he looked heavy—not plump or fat or like he needed to cut back on all that sugar, but tired. Like he had scraped the walls of his inner battery just to make it here.

Bucky just hummed as he filled his fist with the bedding and for a long breath, the mechanical whirr was the only thing heard.

“And you smell,” Steve said as his eyes skimmed over the greasy, pulled back locks. It wasn’t bad enough for him to wrinkle his nose, but still pungent enough to be smelled from a distance. The unsavory notes of sweat, sand and dried blood.

“I just want to be with you,” Bucky said in his defense, lower this time, eyelids already dropping. His hand clenched and unclenched, and Steve thought about when Bucky first had told him about how the arm felt. How it always, in some way, hurt but that something as easy as flexing and unflexing or even better, have someone else run their fingers and activate all the sensors, was like a small blessing. Because it was like trying to tickle yourself, it was always better if someone else did it.

And Bucky laid close. Close enough so that Steve could easily reach out and stroke a hand over the gleaming metal. But he didn’t.

“It’s not your fault,” Bucky mumbled apropos nothing. “For what happened,” he clarified. “We won.”

Steve’s face twisted into something sour. “No, we didn’t.”

“We destroyed his lab, I’d say that’s a win.”

“It was a trap, he wanted us to find it,” Steve said, baffled that Bucky counted yesterday’s fuck up as a win. It irked him, lit a fire beneath his kettle and before he knew it, he was simmering.

“And we got out of the trap, brought down the house. The guy’s probably dead in the rubble,” Bucky said.

Steve huffed bitterly. “It’s not that easy, Buck.”

“It can be,” Bucky said lightly as he cracked open an eye, meeting Steve’s stare for a brief second before he inched closer, like a touch starved dog desperate for a good scratch. All that was missing was the pathetic whining.

Steve pursed his lips and shook his head, having none of that. “I think you should head back to the infirmary,” he said firmly, staring down at Bucky, “have the doc give you something for the pain.”

“I don’t want that.”

It was like an itch, like an allergy. Just being close to Bucky set Steve off, flipped him over and made every stroke a stroke against the hairs, wrong and irritating and— _damn_.

Steve didn’t recognise himself, in either body or mind. A distant part of him realised that as he found himself torn between the decision of having Friday alert the nurse team, or kicking Bucky out of the bed himself. Because he was going to do it, like a conviction filling him up of doing something on his own; how he readied himself by putting the papers to the side and turned toward Bucky, readying himself to reach out and just _shove._

“How can something that’s not even a part of me hurt so much?” Bucky mumbled into the pillow, sounding like he did when he spied the bottom of the whiskey bottle back in the days.

Steve froze.

Didn’t that hit close to home.

Because how could something that hadn’t been a part of Steve for months still hurt so much? That the bare sight of the man he had gone to the grave for was now such a hard thing to look at?

Suddenly, Steve felt shame, guilt and an incredible sense of stupid wash over him. Like a cold flash chilling him to the bone, making him acutely aware of the beating of his own heart.

For a long time, he simply watched the clenching and unclenching of that gleaming fist, the rise and fall of Bucky’s side as he breathed, the shine of the greasy locks in the orange light of the bedstand lamp.

“I don’t know,” Steve whispered, the fight going out of him. Because he didn’t know. Nowadays, it felt like he was bouncing between anger and sadness, going from one extreme to the other in the blink of an eye. Like now, when he realized how his life with Bucky had turned into a depression. Constant and seemingly unending, without an ounce of energy left to untangle all the knots on the bond that tied them together. Because Steve was tired, always waking up like he could sleep for another year and being angry—that was easy, that pumped him up like nothing else and numbed the pain for a few blissful moments.

Next to him, Bucky had stilled; face as lax as the metal fist, his breathing even.

It was Bucky’s bed, too, Steve thought idly as he laid down as close to the edge he could possibly get, pulling the duvet all the way up over his head, hiding from what he had thought about doing not even ten minutes ago.

 

* * *

 

In December, they got a lead on Rumlow and the Avengers were out the door before Steve could even say Crossbones. A one week scouting mission turned into two, three and then Christmas was upon them. It was odd, not having the rest of the team around. How the pillows in the couch always was perfectly arranged, the fridge fully stocked, the house quiet at night and Steve missed them—the feeling of home they put in the walls. Without them, the building felt more like a place he was staying at for a week or two before moving on. Even the plastic designer trees Tony had hired someone poor fool to put up looked weird and reminded him of how last Christmas hadn’t been anything like this.

Last Christmas, they had still been in the tower and it had been Thor himself that had procured a real Christmas tree from God knows where. But it had looked amazing and decorating it had been a mutual effort from almost everyone. Natasha had suggested all white in terms of color-scheme, but Thor had been more of an all-out of everything guy and just to breathe into the fire, Clint had taken Thor’s side.

Steve remembered that night before Christmas Eve vividly, because that had been one of the first time Bucky had actually laughed since coming back. A small, but incredibly genuine laugh as he had cheered on Natasha as she had put herself between the tree and them, cursing them out for their poor tastes.

“Looks like it’s just you and me this time around.”

“You and me and that ugly tree, you mean.”

“I think it looks alright,” Tony said with a shrug.

“It looks like it’s dying,” Steve corrected and looked up from his sketch book. The sad, fake Christmas tree stood by the bookshelf, branches thin and sparsely placed, almost like they had forgot half of them in the box. It was small and short and Steve could practically count the Christmas ornaments on one hand.

“They could still show up in time,” Tony said, hopeful. “They got one day.”

“Yeah,” Steve said as he glanced over at Tony by the kitchen island. “What about Pepper? Is she coming?”

Tony let out a heavy sigh, the bottle chugged lowly as he poured his drink and said, “She wanted to be with her aunt and I didn’t. End of story.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said.

“Don’t be,” Tony said as he walked over and parked his ass in the opposite couch, leaning back with his scotch glass in hand. “So have you bought any Christmas gifts for the kids?”

Steve huffed an amused breath. “I thought we agreed on no gifts this year.”

“Maybe we did,” Tony said, looking thoughtful before he raised his glass. “You want a drink, bud?”

“No, no thank you,” Steve said with a dismissive gesture. “I need to head for New York, I have to go and get my paintings from my teacher.”

“Alright, drive safe,” Tony took a sip from his glass, lips lining tense,  “I’ll have dinner ready for you when you get home.”

“You mean take-away?” Steve shot back, smirking.  

 

* * *

 

Fetching his paintings wasn’t the quick in and out Steve had hoped for. In courtesy of Christmas traffic, he arrived forty minutes late, which had him wait for his teacher to wrap up a meeting and that took an additional hour. After that, he had loomed in the doorway to her closet-like office and watched her unearth folder after folder until she finally found his, only to discover that she hadn’t gone through any of them. So they had done that together, drinking lukewarm coffee and discussing composition, image depth, color harmony and brushwork until her phone had gone off.

By then it was already way after office hours and Steve said his goodbyes, thanking her for the time. He walked out with his head full of her words, chin held high as he headed down the curb and back to the car.

The paintings he clutched under his arm had been good, but not amazing by any stretch of the word. Full of shadows, she had said. All of them, some more exaggerated than others. It hadn’t been critique, but more of a way to acknowledge his style when it came to painting. Not that Steve knew much about that, ink wash was the closest he came to dealing with a brush outside of class. Sketching and drawing had always been more of his forte than oil and acrylic painting. But it had been comforting to hear in its own unique way, that he had a style.

Steve rounded the corner into the side street, heading into the parking garage, up the piss-reeking stairs, out the door and there was his—

—Bucky.

Steve’s heart skipped a beat. He blinked once and then again for good measure, just to make sure the sight of Bucky wasn’t a mirage. But there he was, still after two blinks, leaning against the side of the black car. Blue cap on, hood pulled up and hands tucked low into the front pockets of his jeans. Did Bucky even own jeans? All Steve had seen him in was cozy homewear that could double up as gym clothes.

The irrelevant thought of Bucky’s closet spun and spun inside his head, revving him up like an engine. Because there was Bucky among polished metal and dirty concrete, looking back at him with a small, tepid smile. Bottom lip cracked, just like his right eyebrow. Steve realized that it wasn’t just the hood casting a shadow over his face, over his eyes, but he had a black eye to credit for the weeks gone as well. A redberry color smudged underneath his eye, turning purple over the lid and black at the crease. And then there was the eye itself—the white of his eye wasn’t white anymore. It was blood red, striking his eyes even more blue in contrast.

Perhaps Steve stared for an eternity, jaw hanging loose in its hinges.

“Hey,” Bucky said, bursting Steve’s bubble.

Panic welled up his chest, etching the frown onto his face, white knuckling his grip on the folder. “What are you doing here?!” he hissed, storming closer until he practically stood beneath Bucky’s nose.

Bucky looked down on him with an expression of surprise. “I’m here for you,” he answered plainly as he couldn’t see the wrong with being out in the open.

“Are you crazy?!” Steve continued hushed, already glancing around the parking space, heart lodging itself in his throat at the sight of two ladies exiting through the same door he had used moments before.

“Don’t freak out,” Bucky mumbled. From standing so close, Steve watched how Bucky looked over his shoulder like an eagle stalking a prey—at the ladies passing them by. “You’re causing a scene,” he said through his teeth.

Steve sucked in a big enough breath that had his nostrils flare. He listened to the clicking of their heels until they were further away before he said, “You _can’t_ be here. How did you even get here?”

“I have my ways,” Bucky replied flatly, looking down at him again.

Natasha appeared before Steve’s inner eye, but that didn’t make any sense. Everyone knew to what cost Bucky had to be kept from the law and its justice.

Steve swallowed down a fit of rage, breathing shallow and asked coolly, “When did you get back?”

“Three hours ago.”

“And you couldn’t wait,” Steve scoffed, unbelieving and watched how Bucky’s lips parted. “ _No_ ,” Steve cut him short, having no patience to spare. “Get in the car.”  

Bucky gave him a long, unreadable look but did as he was told. Steve watched him round the car and head for the passenger seat, before Steve gave one last look around and jumped in behind the wheel. His stomach was in knots, the panic unfurling into a quiet ache. But he ignored it as he ignored Bucky when he put the keys in the ignition and drove them out of there, hands squeezing the life out of the steering wheel as he thought of all the cameras that must have caught Bucky on tape.

“I’ve missed you,” Bucky told the passing New York after a while. The tension between them turned awkward when Steve didn’t answer, so he tried again, softer this time. “Haven’t you missed me?”

“I’ve been too busy to miss you,” Steve said with a simmer, almost regretting it in the next second. But for once, his anger was justified, it was fair because Bucky was reckless. What Steve wanted was what Bucky had and to see him risk it by appearing in the middle of New York sent all the alarms going red.

There was a pause where Bucky seemed to shrink in the passenger seat. Fingers closing into a fist and then releasing, the sound of the servos rolling testing the silence. He did that again and again and again, until he whispered, “I love you, you know that right?”

Steve stared at the traffic light ahead and felt the weight in his chest expand. “I know,” he breathed, already knowing that wasn’t the answer Bucky wanted.

The drove in silence until the houses around them turned small, until they were out on the highway and were just another car heading in the same direction.

Bucky pulled down his hood and took off his hat, hand coming up to rake his hair back from his blemished face. “What do you want me to do?” he finally asked, not sounding as small and little as he made himself seem. There was a fierce streak in his voice, something that wanted an answer.

“What?” Steve asked.

“What do you want me to do?” Bucky repeated in the same voice,  sounding more hellbent.

Steve frowned as he glanced toward Bucky. “I don’t understand your question,” he said with an edge, already pulling up his defenses.

“What do you want?” Bucky asked, again.

“I don’t understand,” Steve pushed.

“What do _you_ want?”

“I don’t know what I want!” Steve snapped, calming an inch before he continued, voice still raised. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“I want to know what you want me to do,” Bucky explained calmly, staring at him. “So you can be happy again.”

“I am—”

“—no, don’t say it,” Bucky cut him off, shaking his head at the lie. “I’m doing _everything_ you want me to do and you’re still angry with me.”

Steve’s heart hammered in his chest and realized with a sinking feeling that this wasn’t about sneaking into the middle of New York or about Bucky breaking the curfew. Little by little, the anger drained out of him. He turned ashen under Bucky’s hard stare he saw in the corner of his eye.

“You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me and I often wonder what I’ve done to deserve a second chance with you here in the future,” Bucky said like he was in pain. His worried frown took on a wounded edge when Steve didn’t say anything back, when the silence grew so tense that it could practically choke them both out. “You know men can be with men now, right?” Bucky said instead,  voice low and careful.

“Yes,” Steve croaked.

In the corner of his eye, Steve saw the shadow of a smile play on Bucky’s busted lip; how he was keeping himself together by a thread. “After all this, I’d like that for us. To get hitched, get a nice place, maybe even kids. Don’t you want that?” he asked, hopeful.

Steve swallowed and wondered when they had stopped sending on the same frequency. “I don’t know,” he said thinly.

“You don’t know?” Bucky asked, eyebrows knitting together.

“No, I—” _I don’t think we can have that,_ Steve thought as his heart halved. “—I don’t know.”

Bucky’s voice raised. “How can you not—”

“—no, okay,” Steve said briskly and inhaled deeply, “I do know what I want.”

Bucky looked at him, like he didn’t quite dare to ask. “What is it?”

“I want you to be Captain America.”

Bucky huffed a breath, smiling cruelly through the irony. “You don’t want that.”

“I need you to be,” Steve said.

“Why would you want that? Stark and the doc, they’re gonna fix you, they said—” Bucky stopped and Steve could practically hear when the penny dropped. “They’ve given up,” Bucky said, as if hollowed out by the realization.

Steve nodded stiffly, because that was the only thing that he could do.

“When?”

Steve squeezed the steering wheel hard, as if doing that would will away the pressure behind his eyes. “A month ago,” he said tightly.

Bucky’s jaw dropped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you’d figure it out,” Steve said and heard how ridiculous it sounded, felt silly even. Why would Bucky, who had the weight of the world on his shoulders and a title to keep pristine, have the time to figure it out? But that was the stupid truth, that Steve had waited for Bucky to connect the dots when Sam got his new wings and Rhodey his new suit, when Steve stopped going to the medical ward on a weekly basis.

Bucky shook his head and Steve dared to turn his head to look at him. He looked mortally wounded, like he couldn’t take a second more of the pain.

“ _Steve_ ,” he said in such a fierce, heartwarming and pitying way. “I’m so sorry.”

Steve had to look away. The car before them turned dangerously blurry and it wasn’t even raining, but it felt like a storm; like a tornado blowing through.

“Can—” Steve took a deep, shuddering breath, his voice cracking as he ran a hand under his eye, bushing away a stray tear. “Can we please,” he said, knuckles going white around the steering wheel, “not talk about it?”

So they didn’t.


	5. Swan Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think the last chapter would spark such a reaction. Thank you for all your comments, even though I haven't gotten around to answer, I've read every one of them and appreciate your kind words immensely.

_January 2016_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“They are ready for us.”

“Okay,” Steve breathed with a shaky nod, fingers smoothing over the blue tie.

Never had a stroll down a corridor ever felt this long; like they would never arrive. Six months away from the blinding flashes and microphones treated as shanks, and Steve felt like a media virgin all over again. Hands sweaty, heart pounding, mouth parched.

This was just another nail in the coffin.

At least that was what Steve told himself. A public announcement to calm the media storm that had been brewing since late October. His absence on the Avengers’ press conferences had sparked enough conspiracy theories that even the eight o’clock news had begun to bring it up. Maria had taken on the responsibility to silence the cry of the crowd and while her work had been most admirable, repeatedly stating that Steve was hard at work ensuring the safety of the world, the media was foaming at the mouth after a public appearance.

And now that Tony had thrown in the towel, there was no reason left for them to stay in the dark any longer. It had been his brilliant idea of how they would come out of said darkness, one told under the influence of adrenaline after another laboratory kaboom.

Steve thought about that as he walked down the ashen corridor, if it was the right choice to come clean; to officially pass over the shield. He thought about Bucky and when they told him about going public, about how his face had taken on a look of utter despair; how he had run both his hands through his hair and breathed in as if it was his last breath on earth.

“You don’t want this,” Bucky had said and Steve had practically seen the pain unroll just beneath his skin, the way it had clenched his jaw and wrinkled the sensitive skin beneath his eyes.  

“Right now it’s not about what I want, Buck.”

“Hate to say it, but Rogers is right,” Tony had piped in. Indifferent as usual.

Bucky had steepled his fingers and looked up at Tony, really looked at him as he had asked, “Is there nothing you can do?”

“I’m sorry, bud,” Tony had said. “But I stand by what we said last year. This is not forever, once we catch Rumlow you’re free to go back to your books. Until then you’ll have the chance to take credit for what you do.”

Bucky had frowned and shaken his head. “I don’t want credit.”

In the same way Bucky didn’t want recognition, Steve didn’t want to be seen. The moment he walked out on that stage, everything would change. He would no longer be Captain America in the eyes of the world.

He would just be a kid from Brooklyn.

Just another sheep in the herd, defenseless against the wolves.

Tony’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, dislodging him from his train of thoughts and Steve hadn’t even realized that he had stopped on the threshold, still in cover from the sea of hungry reporters. Six more steps and then he would be out in the open. All the months of working internally and hiding behind phone meetings had spoiled him, because everyone he had been in contact in person with the last months had been people who knew what had happened or people who didn’t recognize who he was anymore, and that had been comforting in it’s own way, to not have to explain that he had been grilled like a slab of meat.

“You okay?” Tony asked carefully.

“Yeah,” Steve breathed and ducked his head. “I’m fine.”

“Shall we then?”

“Just—” Steve hooked a finger between the collar and the tie, loosening it an inch. From where they stood, the hot murmur of the crowd was already buzzing too loud in his head. Beneath the grey suit, he was boiling, skin ready to come off.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Tony said, squeezing his shoulder.

Steve closed his eyes, ignoring the angry pulse at his temples as he breathed in and out. He ran his clammy hands over the jacket’s front and then he put one foot before the other, striding out onto the spotlight of the stage.

The room fell absolutely quiet.

Before him was a sea of dark faces, row after row after row of black silhouettes.

A flash went off.

And then a hundred, joined by the frantic call of his name.

“ _Captain Rogers_!”

“ _Steve_!”

“ _Mr. Rogers, look over here_!”

This time, it was Maria that came up behind him, hand coming to rest on the small of his back, urging him toward the centered table and Steve followed idly, not even realizing that he had stopped beneath the burning lights. He gingerly sat down between the two of them, like a kid with his parents; sitting protected between Maria and Tony.

Around them, the room was on fire.

Tony tapped the microphone in front of him, the feedback cutting through the speakers, silencing the wild voice of the crowd. “Oops,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows propped up against the table. “Hope I didn’t pierce any eardrums.”

Maria leaned closer to her microphone with a put on smile. “I want to thank you all for coming.”

“Ah, yes, thank you all. So—let’s make this quick, shall we? You’ve all been a real pain in my ass these last few months about seeing Prince Charming again so we thought we’d bring him for once,” Tony said, half-turned to Steve, smiling encouragingly, “or the mini version of him at least.”

The sea of reporters let out a stiff laughter.

“So Cap, do you want—”

Steve gave a curt nod and leaned forward, gulping down as he looked over the sea of faceless journalists. His heart hammered and he looked down, down at the paper before him.

“We’re here today to announce that the title and shield of Captain America has been passed down to an agent whose identity will be kept secret,” he read without ever looking up, monotone and automatic and without any feeling, and perhaps the latter was for the best. “I will remain with the Avengers until further notice.”

There was a pause that quickly turned tense, like they expected him to continue, but that was all he had. That was everything that had been on that paper, everything he had spent the night writing down.

Steve looked up, feeling how the heat was creeping up his cheeks and ears, his heart going bonkers in his chest. Two sentences and that had been it, the end.

“And there you have it, people,” Tony said, doing a brave attempt to make the air breathable again.

“We will be answering questions for five minutes,” Maria announced, cutting the silence shorter and in the next moment, a hundred questions were asked at once in a loud, deafening buzz.

_“Captain Rogers, will you still lead the Avengers?”_ was heard above the shouting.

“Yes, I will,” Steve said far from the microphone, earning himself Tony’s warm hand between his shoulderblades, urging him closer. “Yes,” he repeated, louder this time.

_“Cap, has this something to do with the factory explosion last year?”_

_“Has the serum worn off?”_

Steve bowed his head, gaze pinned at the press release before him. It was short and concise, just like his reply. “No comment,” he said.

_“Tony Stark, will you become an active duty combatant in the Avengers again after this?”_

“No, I will not,” Tony said easily.

_“Rogers, what can you tell us about this agent?”_

Steve thought of Bucky and shrugged. “He’s fast… and strong. He won’t let you down.”

_“For how long has this agent operated in your stead?”_

“That’s classified,” Maria replied.

 

* * *

 

The camera shook. Back and forth, up and down until it finally stabilized, showing Captain America on his knees, head down an open manhole like an ostrich with its head in the sand.

“Can you hear it?” asked a young, bodyless voice.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, looking up and straight into the camera, busted lip already swelling into something that looked like a bad botox job.

“How did it get down there?” asked another faceless voice, sounding equally childlike.

“I don’t know, but I’ll go down there.” Bucky flashed a small smile, glancing at the shield and then back at whoever that was holding the camera. “You guys don’t mind watching the shield while I go down there?”

The frame shook, up and down. Like a nod.

And down Bucky went, like a rabbit down a hole. The camera shook again as whoever that held the camera took a few trembling steps forward, the whole scene filling up with the engulfing darkness down the sewer, spotting a glimpse of the blue helmet before he disappeared.

“That’s really Captain America!” exclaimed one of them in the background and the camera panned up, showing the four kids standing around the open hole.

“Yeah,” scoffed another with a nervous laugh, “it’s Steve Rogers.”

“No stupid,” said the first, “it’s the new guy!”

“But it’s still _Captain America_.”

The view went from the darkness of the sewer and the sound of splashing water, and onto the shield that laid next to the sewer cover, star side up.

“Don’t touch it!” hushed a voice as a tiny hand reached out for it, the camera snapping up to show a red-eared boy clutching his hand against his chest as if burnt.

“I wasn’t going to!”

And in the midst of all that, Bucky came climbing up with a tiny, dirty ball of fur in his arms. The puppy whined furiously, ears long and drooping, eyes nothing but big and shiny and confused.

“You found it!”

“Yeah,” Bucky said with a wide, glowing smile Steve hadn’t seen for months. On camera, it was like he was someone else. “She was stuck.”

“She smells,” said one of the kids to Bucky’s right, nose wrinkled.

“Yeah,” Bucky chuckled, “but she’s still pretty, isn’t—”

—the clip cut to black.

“Well, that was cute,” said Tony as he dropped a newspaper on the desk before Steve.

On the front page was the scene that had just unfolded. Bucky on his knees with the dirty puppy in hand, the circle of five kids that could be no older than six around him watching like hawks.  The angle was odd though, almost like someone had stood on a ladder and photographed them facing down.

Peter Parker read the credit.

“Good publicity?” Steve asked.

“Better than the conspiracy theories.” Tony shrugged as he sat down on the chair opposite Steve’s and leaning back. “We’ve already had three trespassers today,” he said with a sigh.

“Less than yesterday,” Steve countered.

“True, but for as curious Vision still is about humans, I doubt having him fend off over zealous journalists is a good way to satiate that curiosity.”

“Are you doubting the decision we made about going public with all this?”

“No,” Tony frowned like he was appalled at Steve for even thinking so, “I’m just saying that I’m upping the monthly bonuses for our beloved facility staff for this year’s budget,” there was a considerate pause and then he said, “and I’ve deployed what’s left of the Iron Legion as well, just to keep the perimeter secure.”

“That’s good,” Steve said and narrowed his eyes. “But I sense a _but_.”

“ _But_ ,” Tony said, face coming together in a bothered grimace, “it might be better if Barnes took his morning runs in the gym instead.”

“So we’re locking him up,” Steve concluded flatly, eyebrows tangling together.

“It’s for everyone’s best,” Tony said and gestured flippantly against the TV to his side. “It’s a lot more comfortable here than in a padded cell.”

“For everyone’s best,” Steve repeated thinly. One of the reasons why he had fallen out of love with the tower was because Bucky wasn’t allowed outside except for on the rooftop balcony and that had always made him a bit nervous, seeing Bucky stand close to the edge. Because back then, he had been even more shell shocked and confused and exhausted, like he couldn’t go on another day.

“We’ve committed to this thing—I,” Tony waved his hand, stopping himself,  “—why am I getting the impression that you’re not approving of this anymore?”

Steve leaned back against his chair. It was big enough to swallow him whole. “It feels like we’ve just dug our grave deeper,” he said. “People are gonna want the truth.”

“We gave them the truth.”

“A part of it,” Steve corrected.

“And it’s _enough_ ,” Tony bit back. “This storm is going to blow over and then we’ll be good to go again.”

“The problem with this storm,” Steve ran a hand over his face and sighed, feeling the irritation simmer beneath his skin, “is that Rumlow wants the man behind the helmet. It wasn’t Captain America that dropped a building on his head.”

“No,” Tony agreed, “technically that was Maria’s doing.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“We’ll still catch Rumlow,” Tony said, confident. “And who knows, maybe he thinks you’re an easy target now that you fit in a suitcase and decides to show up on our porch.”

Steve shook his head, grimacing against the tasteless joke.  “He wouldn’t do that.”

“No, he would most likely send us a bomb,” Tony said with a tight smile.

Steve scrubbed a hand over his face, knowing fully well that it was the truth. Given the security around the facility though, it wasn’t a risk he was losing sleep over. Instead he sat a bit straighter in his chair, eyeing the press release they had released last week.

“Have you heard from secretary Ross?” Steve asked, looking up at Tony.

“Yeah, he’s been calling.” Tony steepled his fingers. “Like every other major federal organization demanding us to release the identity of our new America.”

“But we’re not gonna do it,” Steve said flatly.

Tony smirked. “Wouldn’t be much fun in doing that.”  

 

* * *

 

Bucky built spaceships.

Model ones, of course.

It had started when Banner wanted to know just how exactly how much control Bucky had over his left arm, and it had been a card pulled from Tony’s box of ideas. Because assembling and painting a miniature ship required a steady hand and they all felt it was more of a grownup version of fitting the triangle block through the matching hole in a box. Also, it had kept Bucky occupied as Banner did whatever he needed to do.

After all the hours in the lab, it had quickly turned into a hobby; one Bucky had often dwelled in during those first few months, because staying inside was easier than having to face the world beyond the window glass. A simple diversion he picked up and did after the hour on the treadmill, when the book for the day was already read and tucked away in the shelf, but after everything—after having picked up the shield and donned the suit, Steve knew that time had been a commodity they’ve all run short on.

But that was until today, when Steve walked into the kitchen and saw Bucky by the table, fiddling with something that didn’t quite look like a spaceship at all. It was discus shaped — almost at least — with two rectangular thorns sticking out on one end and if it was a starship, it was one Steve never had seen before.

“Hey,” Bucky said, looking up with a small paintbrush in hand.

“Where’s everyone?” Steve asked, aiming for neutral but coming off stiff as he opened the fridge.

“Fundraiser.”

“Vision went, too?” Steve pulled out the jar of peanut butter from the fridge and closed the door, before he spun around and faced Bucky as he got the toast from the breadbasket on the kitchen island.

“Yeah.” Bucky’s face was soft with a hopeful tint, the smile feeble as he put the paintbrush back in the dirty water. If possible, their argument in the car last month had only mellowed him further; rendered him even more spineless. “How was the phone conference?” he asked gently.

“Dull,” Steve mumbled, popping the toast in the toasters before pulling out a knife and a cutting board.

“Not surprised,” Bucky said, maintaining his treading tone. “You alright?”

“Yeah.” Steve frowned as he reached for a banana in the fruitbowl. “Just tired,” he said. Despite sleeping in late and the one hour nap at three o’clock, it felt like he could lie down right now and he would probably end up falling asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

But maybe that was the weather that made him like this.

Outside, the rain poured.

“You done for the day?”

“I got another phone conference,” Steve said flatly as he peeled the banana before slicing it, finishing just in time for the toaster to pop. He cut off the corners of the toasts before he reached for the unopened jar of peanut butter, one hand on the cold glass and another on the cover before he twisted.

The lid of the jar didn’t budge.

And his hands weren’t even slipping.

He tried opening it again, knuckles going white around the lid, but it was like as if someone had glued it shut, it just _wouldn’t_ move.

“You want help with that?” Bucky asked, looking so much like a dog ready to be tossed a bone from where he sat with his acrylic colors and half-painted starship.

Deep down, Steve knew Bucky meant well, but that was at the pit of everything going through his head and right now, all Steve felt was was the embarrassing sense of incompetence. He felt small, unimportant, superfluous; invisible in the shadow Bucky cast.

Steve shot him a glare, ignoring the heat at the tips of his ears and tried again, doubling over in the effort.

But the result was the same.

The chair screeched lowly as Bucky got up and  walked over as he rounded the kitchen island, stepping right into Steve’s space. “Let me do it,” he said gently.

“I can do it on my own,” Steve bit back as rubbed his palms against his pant leg before he mustered up all the strength he could and tried again, probably popping a blood vessel in his eye at the same time.

He tried again and again and again.

The damn thing _must_ be glued.

“Steve,” Bucky finally said, his voice harboring nothing but warmth; his gleaming palm extended toward Steve. “Your toast is getting cold.”

Steve stared him down, lips mashed together in a harsh line. This was giving up and it felt like he was giving away a part of his soul, cutting it away with a dull knife as he slowly handed Bucky the jar. It was stupid. Because it was a jar of peanut butter, one that Steve had opened just a few days ago and someone must be pulling a lame prank on him.

He watched as Bucky put his right hand on the lid, saw the orange paint beneath his fingernails and for a moment, Steve expected the glass to shatter beneath his palm but Bucky just twisted, gently almost and the lid popped open. Just like that.

It hadn’t been glued or tampered with, it was just Steve being a weak.

Weak like a girl.

Just like all the bullies used to say.

“Here,” Bucky said, passing him the the jar back with that warm, gentle smile he had reserved just for Steve. But not even that could melt the ice in Steve’s veins as he snatched back the jar, not sparing Bucky a single look as he finished buttering the two pieces of toast.

Steve ignored the way his stomach turned; ignored the frantic beating of his heart; ignored the way Bucky withered in the corner of his eye, all his muted puppy energy fizzled out and it felt like Steve could breathe again when Bucky backed away and went back to the table without a word.

 

* * *

 

“Bucky’s birthday is next month.”

“Uh—yeah, I know.”

“Do you have something planned?”

“No—I—do, do you have something in mind?”

“Just a little party,” Natasha said, keeping her cool. “Just us, the family. We all eat what he eats.”

Steve put the coffee tin back on the counter. “So… potatoes and fruit.”

Natasha tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowing just the slightest. “Something like that,” she said, almost like a musing.

“Okay,” Steve said, thinking over the concept once, “sure.” He flipped the button on the coffee maker, hands reaching up to open the cupboard above, pulling out a mug. “Anything else?” he asked, ignoring the way she stared at him.

“I think you’re a little hard on him,” she said without an edge, but Steve saw there was a storm brewing right beneath the surface; a threat at the tip of her tongue. “For a reason neither of us have figured out.”

“I—”

“Is this about that thing only the three of us knows about?”

“I—” Steve opened his mouth, shut it and opened it again, “—what?”

Natasha took a step closer and spoke in the same, neutral tone that was absolutely terrifying. “Are you angry with Bucky because he hasn’t told the truth yet?”

“No— _no_ I would never—”

“Then what is it?” Natasha asked, eyebrows coming together into something that looked like worry. “I have a sad puppy at my heels every day and I want to know why,” the lines softened on her face, the intensity of her glare wore off; the edge on her words evened out, “we all want to know what’s wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” Steve said and he was smiling per automatic, putting up an act now that he was cornered.

Natasha pursed her lips and stared at him like she could see straight through his soul. “You’ve changed, Steve,” she said with the slight shake of her head, but her voice was gentle and without accusation. “And you’re changing Bucky, too.”

“I—” The phone rang loudly between them, bursting the building tension, airing out the feel of dreadful confrontation. “I have to take this,” Steve said quickly and fled the room without ever looking up.

 

* * *

 

Days had a habit of blending together once there was a routine in place. In between staying up late and sleeping in later, Steve couldn’t tell one day from the other. Every day was the same: waking up, feed the trashcan body that always ached and never fully recharged, and after that it was meetings, denying interview requests and staying clear of Bucky and his stares.

Because he did stare, a lot. Whenever Steve slid into the kitchen or picked up a thing in their bedroom or passed him in the hallway, Bucky slowed his steps, eyes going wide, lips parting—like whatever he wanted to say was just at the tip of his tongue.

Steve was tired all the time. Falling asleep wasn’t a problem, but waking up was and even more importantly, getting up. Most days, it was easier just to ask Friday where Bucky was in the building and avoid going there, because it was enough that they crossed paths every night when they got to bed. How Bucky still, after every harsh word and cold stare, stayed up until Steve was tucked down in bed next to him, keeping the light lit as if he feared that Steve would stumble and fall in the dark.

Then he said his goodnight and that was it. A gesture that Steve didn’t know if he should be annoyed at or grateful for, but it was something Bucky did that didn’t temper with his mood. For all the ice between them, sharing the same bed and saying goodnight felt like something final, something that they still had left that wasn’t tainted.

Most nights, Bucky slept as if he was dead: he didn’t move, didn’t snore, didn’t hoard the duvet. He kept to his side, back turned toward Steve and when he woke, Bucky was often gone.

It was a carefully crafted routine—a grey area where neither of them pushed or pulled.

Steve woke up slowly. The heat came first, building beneath the duvet and the sheet, having him shift to his side and that was when he saw the blinking light on his phone. He reached for it and among unread emails and missed calls, was a text. 

> _Natasha R._  
>  **Party tonight @8, be on time.** **  
> **_10.27_

Steve frowned as he backed away from the message and double tapped the calendar app. Sure as the snow had thawed a week back, it was March and Bucky’s birthday. Crammed between five meetings with various state representatives and all their names and numbers to their secretaries, read the short _BB 99_ note.

He had been so busy with his own hamster wheel that it had just slipped from his mind, or perhaps all that anger had repressed it. Last year they had done an all nighter, neck deep in talking about space and galaxies and aliens because that was Bucky liked.

It was strange how much could change in a year.

 

* * *

 

“You’re late.”

“I got stuck in traffic.”

Natasha hummed, like she didn’t quite believe him. “Hope you’re not too hungry.”

“I’m fine,” Steve said as he glanced at the kitchen island loaded with the boxes of fruit. It wasn’t one box or two, but a mountain of them and neither of them looked like they contained the same kind. It almost surprised him, the quantity of it all, the variation.

At the kitchen table was Sam, Bucky and Clint. Further away in the lounge area was Tony and Rhodey sharing a couch opposite to Wanda and Vision, ties loosened and gestures flippant and slow, just like the way they blinked with one eye at the time.

“What have I missed?” Steve asked as he loosened the frown on his face.

“They are trying to drink Bucky under the table.”

Steve’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “Good luck with that,” he said dryly, but then he thought about how Bucky had drunk vodka as if it came from the tap last Christmas and how that combined with the small pharmacy he had loaded on his bedside table, then perhaps their quest wasn’t entirely foolish.

Natasha hummed. “Tony’s been brewing something special,” she said with a curl to the right side of her mouth, “he’s calling it Mr. Amnesia.”

“Sounds interesting,” Steve said as he glanced toward the kitchen table, accidently catching Bucky’s gaze and watched how his eyes crinkled as he smiled at him. Steve looked away in an instant, back at Natasha and her burgundy hoodie and skintight jeans.  

“So have you bought him anything?” she asked.

“Uh, no,” Steve said. “Did you?”

She raised her chin. “Socks,” she said.

Steve’s brows snapped together. “Socks?”

Natasha gave him a pointed look. “That’s what he wanted.”

It had been at the back of Steve’s mind all day, the idea that he should maybe buy Bucky something for his birthday. But just like with Christmas, it felt like Bucky didn’t deserve a gift, which was nothing but outrageous and silly and stupid, but that was how it felt. Like Bucky wasn’t worth the ten—twenty—thirty dollars spent on a shirt or ten pair of socks.

“For how long have they been going at it?” Steve asked instead, countering the embarrassment filling him up.

“Two hours,” Natasha said as she raised the green smoothie cup, lips sealing over the end of the straw before she slurped loudly.

Things felt off between them. Awkward and stiff and nothing like the friendship they had had since the fall of SHIELD. Like with Bucky, the fire had put a mile between him and her, and how every talk since the confrontation had been superficial. Like she had already figured out he was a sinking ship and she had decided to get herself out of there before it was too late.

Clint roared with laughter, loud enough for Steve to look their way and see how Bucky was lit up like a beam and Sam doubled over in laughter.

“So,” Clint began, grinning like a fool as he wiped his eyes dry from any stray tears, “on a scale to one to seven, how drunk are you right now?”

Bucky quirked a considering brow. “A… three maybe?”

“ _Oh_ ,” Sam and Clint said in unison, but it was Clint’s eyes that went wide, mouth rounding into an impressed expression. “So you’re pleasantly tipsy,” he said, grinning as he rubbed his palms together, “alright, I can work with that.”

Bucky smirked as nodded toward the cup between them. “Roll the dice.”

Clint picked up the cup with the dices, shook it thrice and poured them onto the table.

As he watched them from across the room, Steve crossed all his fingers and toes that some monster wouldn’t start rummaging through New York anytime soon.

“Why don’t you grab a drink and come and sit with us?” suggested Natasha in that oddly pleasant manner and for a second, Steve thought about what kind of excuse he could pull. That he was tired, was coming down with a headache, needed to get up early tomorrow, but trying to pull an honest face before a professional liar would only earn him a greater sense of shame.

“Sure,” Steve said with a small sigh and grabbed a beer from the fridge on his way over to the table, already aiming for the seat next to Sam but Natasha came striding in with her long, elegant legs and sat down first.

“Steve, you made it!” Clint exclaimed with his wide smile, “we’ve been waiting for you. New York still got its claws in you?”

“Sorry I’m late,” Steve said as he slowly rounded the table and pulled out the chair next to Bucky, “traffic was a nightmare.”

“Where have you been?” asked Sam with a tepid smile.

“Meetings,” Steve said as he sat down on what felt like needles and ignored the skeptical look Sam shot him in favor of turning toward Bucky, who smiled back at him and in front of everyone around the table, Steve felt the urge to mirror it, so he did. The smile light and short, but at least it was there. “Happy birthday.”

Bucky’s hand came to rest on Steve’s shoulder, warm and heavy as he squeezed gently and Steve did everything in his power to not pull away as his skin crawled.

“I’m happy you could make it,” Bucky said and Steve heard how sincere he was, which only made it feel even more unbearable.  

Clint shook the cup with dices and asked with a sly smile, “You want in too, little man?”

“Maybe the next round,” Steve said, shoulders still in a tense line beneath Bucky’s hand.

“Alright,” Clint said with a shrug and just like that, they were neck deep in their drinking game again and Bucky’s hand drifted off his shoulder.

For what felt like an eternity, Steve listened to them measuring their dicks in terms of target practice and weapon maintenance and vodka, all while Bucky passed his three. At first glance, he looked no worse for wear, but the more Steve looked his way, the more he saw the change. The flush on Bucky’s chest, peeking up above the narrow neckline of his shirt, the glossy eyes, the sag of his shoulders and the ease he smiled with.

Bucky was like a fish in the water. He wasn’t like Steve who on most days thought he was going mad. It felt like he couldn’t talk to anyone because it was like he had forgotten how he used to talk, how he used to be. It wasn’t a case of stuttering or hesitating or saying the wrong things, but every word he spoke just echoed so oddly in his head. Like it was another voice but his talking.

And it was strange, because he was alive and well, breathing and seeing and feeling things, eating and talking and even drawing—functioning in every sense of the word. He felt like he should be fine, because there was nothing physical hindering his daily life, but he wasn’t.

Then there was the anger. Whenever he was upset or irritated, it worked like a big mouthful of whiskey and he recognized himself again and the skin he was in, and that was just as strange as the thought that he was losing his mind.

His friends always asked how he was, if he was okay and Steve’s reply had always been a short _I’m fine_ , but the recurring question had stirred up an obsession in him, and when he wasn’t overloading himself with work, he thought about what he should and shouldn't feel. The question had buried itself deep in his brain, right next to the green pit that flared up whenever he saw Bucky. Because he should be happy, he should be okay. He was alive and well and more fortunate than others. He wasn’t as sick as back in the day, wasn’t in as much pain. He had money in the bank and an amazing place to live and he had a second chance at love.

But none of that soothed the ache in his chest or eased the weight off his shoulders and he felt stupid for not settling on what he had, for feeling so sad and angry and frustrated all at the same time.

Most days, it was easier to smile on cue, to keep his mouth shut and play along, even if it made him feel like an imposter.

“Barnes, let me ask you this…” Clint looked at them with one eye squeezed shut, almost as if he couldn’t stand the light in the room. “And you don’t have to answer this, but I really, really… _really_ want to know.”

Bucky sat a little straighter, left hand clenching and unclenching beneath the table. “Sure,” he said with smile that seemed strained at the corners.

“Have you ever… with the arm…” Clint lolled his head to the other side, right hand coming up to sluggishly gesture toward his left arm in a wide, elaborate gesture. By now, Steve counted twelve empty beer cans by Clint’s corner and he didn’t even want to know how many times he had turned that shot glass upside down. “After they plucked you out from the freezer, did you ever just lick your arm just to fuck with the techs?” he asked with a wide grin.

The tension in Bucky’s shoulders disappeared like the smile on his face. “Once,” he deadpanned.

“Really?” Clint asked as he looked up, eyebrows tightly pulled together.

Bucky huffed and shook his head, lips stretching into the wide pleased smile. “No.”

“Dammit,” Clint said with such a downtrodden look on his face that it wrung a laugh out of everyone at the table, except for Steve and it was Sam that noticed that as the corners of his lips sank.

“You haven’t said a whole lot man,” he said with that worried frown pinched deep into his skin.

“It’s been a long day,” Steve said with a sigh. Beneath the table, he felt Bucky’s knee brush against his, innocent and soft but still hitting like a jolt and he got up quick—perhaps a little too quick for someone that had had a long day. “I think I’m gonna retire for the night.”

“What no, already?” whined Clint with a look of distress.

“You’ll have to stop by more often,” Steve said with a half-smile, ignoring the way he saw Bucky stare at him in the corner of his eye.

“I’ll do that,” came the drunk promise. “I’ll stop by every weekend!”

Steve gave Clint a tight nod before he took one glance around the table, ignoring the edge to Natasha’s demeanor as their eyes met or the disgruntled look on Sam or the way Bucky looked morose.

“Goodnight everyone,” Steve said, leaving the half-full beer bottle in his wake.

The moment he slithered out into the corridor, it felt like he could breath again, how every step further away from them—from Bucky eased the weight in his chest. Steve headed upstairs, through the small hallway and then left straight into their bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him before he leaned back against it and let out a heavy, shuddering breath.

Sam had been right. Steve hadn’t said a damn thing after he had sat down, he had just watched them interact, listened to their banter as he bit his tongue, tried to stay in his skin as Bucky sat beside him and practically radiated, his glow burning.

It was with heavy steps that Steve collected his pajamas, consisting of nothing but a t-shirt from his old wardrobe and fresh pair of boxers before he locked himself in the bathroom. He took a cold shower to ease the heat beneath his skin, beneath the scars and after that, he took his time as he rubbed himself all over with the scar cream.

It was worst over his legs, over his thighs and how it stretched up toward his hips, over the right side of his stomach and back toward his lower back. There were minor patches along his arms, on the back of his shoulders, but they had healed fine. It was just the heat flashes that bothered him, nothing major, but enough for him to squirm in his seat whenever the burning sting burst open beneath the scars.

He scrubbed a towel over his damp hair before he redressed and brushed his teeth, fingers combing through the gold locks before he turned away from the mirror, opened the door and—

—he almost walked straight into a black wall, nose an inch from dipping straight between those clothed pecks, the smell of smoke and alcohol filling his head, obliviating the cleansing scent of peppermint in an instant.

“Hey,” Bucky said with those blue, shimmering eyes as his hand reached up to touch Steve’s cheek, but before his warm fingers touched skin, Steve dodged him like he was dodging a blow, quickly slipping between Bucky and the doorframe.

But Bucky caught him, fingers wrapping tight around Steve’s upper arm. “Wait a minute,” he said as he pulled him close; close enough that his reeking breath was spilling hot over Steve’s face.

“Don’t you have a party to attend to?” Steve asked firmly, wrinkling his nose as he turned his head to the side.

“The party is over,” Bucky said with a small, languid smile. “Are you alright? You were so quiet.”

“I’m fine,” Steve muttered as he tried to pull away, putting more strength than needed behind the tug, but Bucky reacted quickly; pushing him up against the doorframe, cornering him all around with that smell that reminded Steve so much of the forties, booze and smoke and debauchery.

Bucky looked down at him like he didn’t believe him and Steve hated that, this frog perspective of having to look up at everything and everyone.

Bucky tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowing. “What am I doing wrong?” he asked after a beat of silence, his pupils full blown and dark, face hollow with a put on smile.

“You’re drunk,” Steve said, pushing away again, gaining an inch—

—and Bucky pushed him right back against the doorframe, hard enough for him to bump the back of his head against the ridge. Hard enough for Steve’s heart to jump up in his throat, to feel the pain unfurl beneath the skin, putting his face in a tight grimace.

“Are you angry with me for not remembering more?” Bucky pushed, his smile replaced with a dark frown.

“Are you _stupid_ —”

“Have you gotten tired of me?” Bucky asked with that serial killer calm that put Steve on the edge, pumping him up, bringing back the thought that froze the blood in his veins, reminding him that Bucky was someone who could snap him like a twig. “Because I’m not the man you remember.”

“Listen to yourself,” Steve sneered and then suddenly he wasn’t simmering anymore, his skin blistering and burning in Bucky’s hard grip.   

“What can I—”

Steve shoved him back. Not that he moved an inch, which was an infuriating detail in itself, but the action was still there. “You need to sleep this off,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I need to _know_ —”

“If all the circuits weren’t fried up there,” Steve bit off harshly, the words just slipping out as he jabbed a finger Bucky’s temple, “then you’d know.”

Everything went still.

Right then and there, Steve knew he had crossed a line. Because if Bucky had told him anything about his time at Hydra, it was about the chair and the wipes, about how the headache could last for days, reminding him that something had happened, but not what or why.

Bucky went lax, his grip ebbing out into nothing and then he _smiled_ , false and hollow and Steve saw that this was the final drop in the bucket. His heart withered in his chest, his tongue turning into a lead weight in his mouth; his fists unclenching.

“Goodnight Steve,” he said, wowed in a way that he couldn’t just believe what he had heard, like he hadn’t expected that to be used against him.

And then he just left, the door sliding shut behind him with a quiet click. He didn’t storm out or slam the door, because that was what Steve would have done—Bucky just closed it, gently almost.

A thousand thought buzzed through Steve’s head. Bucky would come bouncing back, he thought, because he always did; tomorrow he would be the same endearing puppy Steve couldn’t stand.

Tomorrow he would stare at Steve like he always did, smile that sheepish smile that was blinding and infuriating and—

—it needed to be tomorrow now.

Because tomorrow, everything would be swept under the carpet.

 

* * *

 

There wasn’t a dent in Bucky’s pillow when Steve woke up. He slowly blinked away the gravel from his eyes and willed the heaviness gone from his limbs, before he pushed himself upright and smoothed a hand over the cold fabric where Bucky should have spent the night.

The first thing Steve saw was the empty bedside table on Bucky’s side. There was no worn paperback, no pill bottle, no half-empty glass there.

Steve felt the tug on the knot in his chest, his stomach sinking like a stone and as he looked toward the door, he caught a glimpse of the wardrobe door that stood ajar. He slung his legs over the edge of the bed, the hair on his arms knotting at the sudden lick of cold air as he walked up to the closet and opened the door. Their closet wasn’t filled to the brim, not with half of it always stuck in a laundry machine, but it wasn’t empty either.

There was something awfully permanent that clawed itself into his chest as his hand found nothing. The shelf was bare beneath his fingers and it wasn’t one or two or three shelves that lacked the neatly stacked piles of clothes, but all of them.

And it wasn’t his clothes that were gone, but Bucky’s.

 


	6. Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost, a huge thanks to [buttfloss](http://archiveofourown.org/users/buttfloss/pseuds/buttfloss) for beta reading this chapter -- you have my deepest gratitude. If it weren't for her, this chapter probably wouldn't be up by now. 
> 
> Now, I know it's been a while and I'm sorry, but I've been busy with various other writing projects. Despite the irregular updates, my aim is to finish this story before summer hopefully. I'm well into writing the next chapter and it'll hopefully pop up sometime during February.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was something in the dust. On the bedstand, right by the nightlight was a perfect rectangle where the books used to be. Bucky’s books – the paperbacks with the worn covers and yellowed pages, organized in that alphabetical order Steve could recite with his eyes closed. Dune, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Martian, Beacon 23.

All of them were gone like the clothes in their closet. The bare shelves on Bucky’s half looked out of place, broadcasting a message that felt so abstract that Steve couldn’t do anything but to squeeze the life out of the pillow in his arms, greedily breathing in the faint cedar notes buried in the polyester. The books, the glass of water Bucky routinely refilled, the painkillers – the little things that screamed of him were gone, creating an emptiness that carved Steve up from the inside.

“Where’s Bucky?” he asked the ceiling, his voice paper thin.

_“Sergeant Barnes is currently in the gym with Miss Maximoff.”_

Steve sagged where he sat on the edge of the bed, the sandbags coming off his shoulders with a hard thud – or perhaps that was his heart, finally beating again after an eternity of anger and sadness. He sucked in a deep breath, hugging the pillow impossibly tighter against his chest as he doubled over, burying his face in the familiar scent. He held his breath like he held back the prickling sensation building up behind his eyes.

It was tomorrow and Bucky was still here.

Except that he wasn’t. That empty closet meant something far worse than Bucky packing a bag and living up to his ghost story once more.

Unless _—_

Steve looked up from the pillow all lightheaded. He scrubbed a hand over his face, ran a finger over his cheek and blinked, blinked, blinked. He cleared his throat, swallowed down the fear and asked, “Is he going somewhere?”

_“As far as I can tell, he hasn’t made any travel arrangements.”_

Steve breathed out.

It was tomorrow and yesterday was history. Bucky was still here and everything was fine; he wasn’t going anywhere. For all the fights Steve had started that Bucky had been forced to finish, backing down had never been his thing. He was pragmatic, picked logic over emotion, thought about everything twice before he did something; said something and that he would just pack up and vanish wasn’t him.

But the thought of Bucky staying didn’t ease the pain in his chest or put a bottom to the gaping pit of shame he was falling through.

Steve nodded stiffly, still blinking furiously as the the pressure behind his eyes remained. “Where are all his things?” he asked and hated the way his voice broke.

“ _He moved them into the spare room on the entry floor_ ,” came Friday’s calm reply.

Bucky was still here, in the building and he would be like he always was: too close, too much harnessed puppy energy, too attentive and loving and kind. That he had moved out the room didn’t have to mean anything—maybe he just needed the day to cool down. Not that he had been angry yesterday, not like Steve at least, but maybe some distance wouldn’t hurt.

For all that pushing and shoving Steve had done the last few months, it suddenly felt strange. Like something was terribly wrong, something that lodged his heart in his throat and had ice form in his stomach, because something was askew. What he had said—that was wrong. He hadn’t meant it. The words had just leapt from his tongue, bubbled out of him in the heat of things, landed like a low blow.

His chest and gut and soul ached with regret. If there existed a time machine, he would happily go back and slice his own tongue off before he even had the chance to say something like that again. Bucky wasn’t daft or stupid or boneheaded—he was smart and brilliant and genuine, and Steve realized that yesterday hadn’t been about turning over stones or pushing sore buttons, but a simple question of confirmation. _Is it what I think it is that’s really bothering you so much?_

Bucky cared so damn much and Steve had been angry at him for it, and now he couldn’t help but wonder if it was possible to die of guilt. Because that was what he felt like doing as he buried his face in the pillow once more and he breathed in from the bottom of his lungs, inhaling the scent of Bucky.

It was fine, it was tomorrow and Bucky was still here.

But Steve felt the need to see it for himself, to see Bucky with his own two eyes as if that would put a lid on the panic welling up inside of him; the sick, long forgotten feeling of worry and guilt and fear. He got up from the bed as if kicked, changed into a fresh set of clothes, washed his face and fixed his hair, checking himself twice in the mirror before giving himself the green light.

“Where’s he now?” Steve asked as he stepped into his shoes.

 _“In the kitchen accompanied by Miss Romanov and Miss Maximoff._ ”

Steve left their bedroom behind and scurried down the corridor, mind already going a thousand miles per hour. He thought about what he would say, what Bucky would say; if he would be sad or angry or if he would just draw a line over what had been said; if he would understand that yesterday had been a mistake of epic proportions.

Because Steve hadn’t meant it. He hadn’t. What he had said had been a complete betrayal of trust and Bucky moving out his stuff from their room made sense, it was justified but—

—Steve rounded the final turn of the corridor, not knowing who he had passed on the way or how quick, but he was there, standing right by the threshold and he saw them, the familiar silhouettes of Natasha, Wanda and Bucky. The three of them stood glued by the window, tit-tat-toe; tall, taller, tallest.

It was tomorrow, Bucky was still here and everything would be fine. He wore burgundy sweatpants, white sneakers with no socks and a plain t-shirt. Judging by the looks of it, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Steve stared at the width of Bucky’s back, the creases in the shirt, the way the plates calibrated on the back of his arm. Steve’s chest exploded with the hope that Bucky would just turn around and smile that carefully muted smile, play it off like yesterday never happened because it was tomorrow and—

“Didn’t the neighbors call yesterday about one of theirs going missing?” Wanda asked, head cocking to the side.

“I don’t know,” Natasha said with a shrug, “but—what are you doing?”

Bucky took a step to the right, hand reaching for the door. “They are probably looking for it,” he said as he pushed down the door handle with a quiet click. He didn’t sound angry, didn’t sound upset or irritated or frustrated. He was like he always was—kind, gentle, calm.

Steve watched as Bucky walked out the door and without even thinking twice, Steve put some weight on his steps and walked up to the girls. “Good morning,” he said—even mustering up a smile as he gave them both a once-over.

“Morning,” Wanda said, smiling.

“You’re up early,” Natasha said with the faintest curl to her lips.

“Yeah, I was—” Steve fidgeted beneath her gaze, shifting his weight from one leg to the next as he looked at Bucky and how he strode past the pool and further onto the field where there was something _big_ , something four-legged and chocolate colored and Steve couldn’t help but to narrow his eyes, his spine going straight as if being taller would make him see things more clearly, “—is that a _horse?_ ”

“We think it’s the neighbors’,” Wanda said easily.

On the other side of the window glass, Bucky stopped a stone throw away from the horse. It looked back at him with its head held high and ears like sharp triangles and for a flash of a second, Steve saw someone else. The Bucky who had the short hair that tended to curl when it dried, the Bucky who smiled unguarded and had spent a season working at Aqueduct Racetrack cleaning out stalls and walking the ponies before he secured his job at the docks.

Back in Brooklyn he’d got up at three o’clock in the morning like a damn whirlwind, stumbled out to his bike that ran on nothing but elbow grease and the supporting smack of a wrench and hurried to make it in time to his early shift. He’d always been tired when he got home, always collapsed like he couldn’t walk another step by the time he thundered over the threshold all hunger dazed and sweaty, smelling of horse and hay and leather polish. He had been more self-conscious back then. Always running a hand through that curly hair whenever a fine dame had passed them by on the streets and leaned closer to Steve before he asked all low and husky, _do I still smell like horse?_

“I should bring him some rope,” Steve mumbled and backed away. He rounded the kitchen island, opened the standard miscellaneous drawer that without a doubt lived up to its designation. Between unopened boxes of Stark phones and screwdrivers and brochure for universities, was a knot of green rope. He picked it up and was out the same door Bucky went through before the girls had the chance to protest.

Outside, the grass was sparkling with morning dew. Steve wrapped his arms around himself, the cold sneaking beneath the hairs on his arms as he walked past the pool and onto the field. In the distance he watched how Bucky took a step closer and much like a dance, the horse took an awkward step backwards.

Even if Bucky left tomorrow or the day after that, where would he go? He was like one with the décor; after almost two years, he belonged with them and the mere idea that he would leave made it hard to breathe. Like a magnet increasing its intensity, Steve walked faster until he was close enough to hear Bucky speak; cadence lazy sounding, words only familiar enough for Steve to recognize the language.

Steve slowed his steps until Bucky was close enough to touch. Just like he was reaching out his palm toward the horse, Steve could do the same—extend a hand and run his fingers over Bucky’s shoulder, feel the warmth of him, feel that he was still here and that he wasn’t going anywhere because of yesterday. It was tomorrow and everything would be fine. They would be.

“I brought some rope,” Steve said in a low undertone, white knuckles going lax around the knot. Bucky didn’t say anything or glance to his side, but he stopped mumbling.

The horse shook its head as if to get that long forelock out of its dark eyes, nostrils widening as it exhaled heavily, neck going long as it stretched his head toward Bucky despite there being a bus length between them. It—she, because it looked like a she, took a step forward, stopped and then took another slow, tentative step followed by another. Step by step she came closer until the smell of horse brushed straight into Steve’s face with the rolling of the wind.

She had all the weight placed on her back hooves like she was ready to spring backwards and dart any second, like it was only the curiosity nudging her closer and closer, step by step. She stretched her neck again, muzzle not even a foot from touching Bucky’s palm.

“Как тебя зовут?”Bucky mumbled and for a tense breath, the horse flattened one ear and snorted, freezing in place like she didn’t know what to do , but then her ears shifted forward again and she advanced one last step, nose burying itself in Bucky’s hand. “Oткуда ты?” he mumbled as he raised his other hand and gently petted her over the cheek.

“I’ll call the neighbors,” Steve said and managed a wobbly smile that wasn’t all there. Not that Bucky could see it, which was perhaps for the best. “Let them know you caught their horse.”

Bucky scratched the horse between the ears, ruffling the long tuft of hair there and suddenly, the seconds that passed felt like minutes, because Bucky was supposed to say something, to turn toward Steve and speak with the same lazy, warm voice as he did to the horse and everything would be fine.

But he didn’t.

He didn’t even turn toward Steve, didn’t acknowledge that he was right there, close enough to touch.

Next to the shame and guilt clawing through Steve, was now the curling sense of stupidity as well. He had gone to bed thinking that tomorrow would be a new day and things would be alright, but now they weren’t.

“She’s pretty,” Steve blurted out, trying to battle the growing, choking awkwardness that ruled between them. Her mane was copper colored, the white stripe between her dark eyes ran wide all the way down to her muzzle and she had three long, white socks.

Steve pressed his teeth together as he waited and waited and waited. It was tomorrow and everything was _supposed_ to be fine, but it was like he was an ant by Bucky’s boot.

“Do you want the rope?” Steve tried again and this time he extended it toward Bucky who turned back at him, snatched the rope without ever meeting his gaze and said nothing as he looked at the horse again.

Steve gulped down as he tossed one eye over his shoulder. He breathed in an unsteady breath and that wobbly smile was long gone, replaced with a look of misery. “Are you alright?” he asked and couldn’t help but sound small. He watched the agility of Bucky’s fingers as he untied the knot of rope, the horse eagerly nosing his mixed hands, nostrils wide as it blew out a deep breath. Steve didn’t dare to reach out to touch either of them, although the urge was there like an itch on his skin.

“I’m fine.”

Bucky was like a dark, rumbling cloud; he said it like he didn’t have an ounce of patience left for Steve. It was a razor sharp contrast against the lost puppy look; wasn’t as submissive or mellow or kind as he used to be, wasn’t the same Bucky that had Steve riled up against the wall for all the wrong reasons.

He was angry.

For the eighteen months they had spent together in the future, Bucky had never been angry. He had been sad and frustrated and irritated, but never angry. Not like this, not with Steve and that turned him cold from the inside out. He breathed hard through the sick misery blooming at his very core, head thick and aching with the idea that perhaps Bucky needed more than a day to calm down as he backed away, heart beating so fast it hurt as he retreated over the sparkling grass.

Another day and then they would be fine.

 

* * *

 

The toaster popped with a _ping_ in the background.

“Can we talk?” asked Steve between one breath and the next, the jar of peanut butter cold in his hand.

There was a long, tangible pause where Steve saw the clench in Bucky’s jaw. “Do we need to?” he asked, his voice painfully even as he never took his eyes off the paperback in his hands.

Steve wanted to scream from the top of his lungs, _yes_. But there was the lump in his throat, stubborn no matter how many times he gulped down. Instead he just stood there, tongue-tied like a fool and staring, shoulders hunched like he was even sorry for the space he occupied in the room.

It had been two days and their roles were now reversed: Steve could practically hear him simmering from where he sat on the couch, his bandaged hand coiled up in a tight fist, eyebrows tangled together in a severe expression that reminded Steve so much of the Winter Soldier. He wanted to grab him by the shirt and shake him until all the anger was gone, until there was nothing but his teeth rattling in his skull but Steve found himself unable to move, unable to speak, unable to _think_ through the hard, choking feeling of fear.

The world turned blurry when Steve watched Bucky flip the page, unbothered and defiant. He was reading the Martian and he was more than halfway through and he was just fine on his own, fine without Steve beating his ass for just caring.

Seventy years of abuse and neglect, and it had only made him kind.

A feeling of absolute finality struck Steve. Hard and heavy, leaving him breathless and feeling like a fool before Bucky. He ran a hand beneath his eye, an automatic flick more than anything and backed away, put the stubborn jar of peanut butter back in the fridge, tossed the lukewarm toast in the bin and left.

 

* * *

 

It was a stupid idea. Steve knew that it wouldn’t—shouldn’t change anything between them, but right then and there, amidst damage reports and public statements that needed his signature, it felt like something that he had to do. After everything that had happened, Bucky had every right in the universe to act the way he did. All things considered, he was only doing what Steve had been doing: holding a grudge.

Bucky’s bitterness was far more justified and rational than Steve’s had ever been. In the back of his mind, Steve found himself believing in the idea that he deserved this—this fallout. After all, wasn’t this what he wanted? To put some distance between them? Bucky being angry at him was only karma coming back and kicking him in the ass.

Steve cleared some space on his desk, piling up the neglected paperwork so tall that it almost reached his shoulder before he opened the desk drawer, pulled up the watercolor pad and tore a sheet of paper from it.

It felt like he was peeling off a banana only to offer the brown peel as an olive branch; it wouldn’t be enough. But it was a start, he thought as he picked off the glue stuck to the paper’s edge. For what it was worth, it was catching up – a way of owning up for ever thinking that Bucky wasn’t worth something as simple as a birthday present and it was hard to not cringe at the absurdity of the thought. How had he ever rationalized such a decision?

Steve inhaled deeply through his nose as he folded the paper once on the middle, settling for nothing less than precise. After, he picked up a pencil, shoved the devil off his shoulder and put his best hand to bring his vision into something palpable. Using light, barely-there strokes, he sketched the broadside of a space shuttle, even fit in the pointy ears of a cat in one of the windows because if there was something Bucky liked, it was animals. The action footage of them on YouTube had nothing against the video of Bucky trying to catch a piglet in the middle of a town square after a fight had carried them to a country fair last year. The dust had settled quickly, their bad guys locked in chains before even the press had had the chance to show up and when they did, they had gotten a clip of Bucky standing on his nose trying to catch the four-legged escapee. Almost everyone had laughed themselves into shape for the bikini season that day.

Looking back, it had been one of those magical moments where Bucky was someone else. Someone that smiled with the same ease as the man from seventy years ago.

Combat footage and wild-goose chases aside, bringing a pig into space would be unconventional. But maybe a cat could work.

On the upper third of the paper, Steve wrote a simple _happy birthday_ in his best comic book font. After that, he drew a pretty badass astronaut in front of the spaceship, spending far too much time on getting the detail right on the NASA logo. He worked on the gleam of the helmet, mapped out the shadows of the suit and drew a comet in the background before he erased a part of the ship to make room for a speech bubble and wrote:  _I’ve heard that you’re like fine wine – you grow better with age._

It took him an hour and a dozen google searches to figure that one out.

Deeming the front complete for the moment, he opened up the card and continued the theme. He sketched their solar system from the outside and looking in toward the sun, even doing a few internet searches to add a handful of comets and the stars of Bucky’s zodiac.

Next to the sun he steadied his hand and wrote as his heart pounded harder: _next year will be better._

He quickly flipped the card over to its back and flexed his hand, sighing as the ache searing through the muscles mellowed. What he had written, that was the truth—it was going to be the truth. From here on out, Steve would suck it up, stop being so goddamn angry for no good reason at all and things would get better. Perhaps Bucky would find the card silly, but that was preferable to him being sad or angry.

They would get better. Maybe Bucky would even move his stuff back into their room, because them sharing a bed had been fine as long as Bucky didn’t discharge himself from the medical ward in the middle of the night. Steve would like that, to see with his own two eyes that Bucky wasn’t going anywhere, that his clothes were still in the closet and paperbacks were back where they belonged.

On the back of the card, Steve drew himself as a rotten banana. After some consideration, he added a space helmet and later, exaggerated the downturned mouth and big nose. Sticking to the same font as before, he wrote on the top piece of the paper: _I’m sorry, I’m a gigantic…_

He added arrows pointing down before he dropped the pen and sat back with a heavy sigh, glancing at the clock.

Three hours. That was how long it took to sketch everything out. Front, middle, back—all done and the result wasn’t a piece he wanted to burn, which was something. He glanced at the clock again and realized that it wasn’t even late, he could perhaps even make it to New York before rush hour and then he would have plenty of time to find a good parking spot and rummage through the city for a proper present.

Steve placed the card between a stack of reports, picked up his phone and left the office behind. He detoured to his room, dropped off the card in exchange for his wallet and jacket before he left with the task spurring his steps.

Everything felt less stupid when he sat in the car, but perhaps that was because he thought about what Bucky would have wanted for his birthday. A book? A movie? Socks as Natasha had said?

Steve had absolutely no idea what Bucky could possibly want or need. They had never been much for gifts, at least not back in Brooklyn and whenever Christmas or any of their birthdays had come around the corner, they had usually done something together like buying the whiskey that was twenty cents more expensive than the one they usually got, or ate somewhere fancy if they had the money to splurge.

When they had celebrated Christmas back in the tower, Steve had gotten him one of those electrical blankets because despite being called the Winter Soldier by mass media, Bucky hated being cold and hated winters even more.

That had been a good present, but that was hardly one Steve could buy again.

After parking the car, Steve went to the bookstore first and looked through the science fiction department, unsure what Bucky had and hadn’t read. He read the backside of a dozen paperbacks, weighing between two but in the end left empty handed. Feeling a little less sure about what he was doing, Steve took refuge at the nearest café and re-caffeinated himself while googling for any sort of advice for what to get a young, middle-aged man.

Gift cards was something that popped up in every article. Even though Bucky was technically broke, he did have that extra card with Steve’s name on it that he used when he bought things online. Books, model ships, music or movies to their mutual iTunes account. Steve had explicitly told Bucky to buy whatever he fancied when he gave him the card and from then on, Steve simply hadn’t viewed it as his. Sure, the money came from the same account, but whatever Bucky ordered using that card wasn’t Steve’s business, which was probably why it felt like he was violating some kind of sacred trust when he logged into his bank account with the intention of checking the transaction history for Bucky’s card.

Steve told himself that he might get a hint of what Bucky had bought if he peeked, but then his heart started to beat faster and his stomach knotted. It wasn’t like Bucky would have ruined him—if he managed to break the bank then he deserved a pat on the shoulder, but what if he had bought a plane ticket? A suitcase, a backpack, anything that suggested that he was heading somewhere?

Steve swallowed down the last gulp of coffee with that thought in mind and tapped open the full history of the card’s usage.

Last purchase was from Amazon for $2.88 and that was last week. A book probably. When it came to books in particular, Bucky always opted for buying already used.

The transaction before that was from Apple. $9.99 – an album, surely. Six days before the first.

The one before that was of $9.99 from Netflix.

If this was anything to go by, Bucky wasn’t going anywhere.

Feeling a mix of shame and relief, Steve put down his phone. That hadn’t been so bad, but it hadn’t been the right thing to do either. Slumping in his seat, Steve lifted his cup only to put it down again when he realized that it was still empty. He took a minute to collect himself before he got up and left.

The street outside was busy and without any sort of clue or guidance, it was easy to wander aimlessly from one store to the next. He went into two more bookstores, browsing through the sections that might interest Bucky without any luck and after that, he walked into the first best clothing store. A groovy track echoing from the overhead speakers met him and it was hard not to feel a little out of place in the men’s department knowing that even the smallest size would probably end up looking baggy on him.

Bucky wasn’t as picky about his clothes nowadays. His wardrobe was plain – like Steve’s. There weren’t many patterns or colors or shirts with funky prints, which automatically carried Steve toward the sweatpants in the store, but how much fun was that? Bucky already had a bunch of those.

Steve continued the tour around the store, hand smoothing over a few long-sleeved button ups hanging by the wall. One green checkered, the other purple and while they were both nice, they didn’t feel casual enough. It hadn’t exactly been a secret that Bucky had always liked looking sharp whenever they had decided to go dancing, but that had changed and Steve didn’t know when Bucky would have the use for a fancy shirt like that. Secondly, what would he wear it with? Sweatpants and white sneakers?

Keeping them both in mind, albeit far off, Steve walked to a table displayed with dozens of different t-shirts, varying in both color and message but there was just one that popped out; one that screamed Bucky. If possible, this was gold in textile form. Steve quickly looked over the other shirts, but none of them had the same clever text as the first one.

 _Runs on veggies_ read the white, bold letters on the grey shirt. There was a carrot instead of the V and how could this be any less Bucky? He absolutely loved vegetables and fruit and not only was the message simple – perhaps a bit cute even, but the shirt was as well. It was a regular grey t-shirt with a clever print.

Steve checked the tag. Thirty dollars, size extra-large and it was hard to believe that he used to wear that size when he held it up. When he looked over the shirts a second time, he saw that it also came in blue and his first immediate thought was that he could get them both. He _should_ get them both because money wasn’t a problem and right now, it felt like Bucky deserved each and every garment hanging around him.

Steve reached for the blue shirt, checked the tag for the right size—

“You’re Captain America!”

—Steve spun around on his heel, lips loosening into a small smile as he saw a young woman with a hand over her mouth, eyes saucer wide. She was the same height as him.

“Today I’m just Steve Rogers,” he said and watched how her whole face lit up even more with pure joy and it was hard not to smile wider. He hadn’t been recognized like this in a long time.

“ _Ohmygod_ ,” she breathed as she lowered her hand, “I wrote my thesis about you.”

Steve arched a brow. “You did?”

“Yes—or it’s about you and Buc— _James_ —about James, I’m sorry I’m totally rambling and I’m sorry—” she gestured toward him helplessly, a hint of worry coloring her voice, taming her smile, “I’m not interrupting you, am I?”

Steve shook his head. “It’s alright, what’s your name?”

She breathed in deeply, smile regaining intensity. “Simone.”

She was beautiful. Her hair was black as midnight, skin a deep glowing bronze, eyes wide, intelligent and amber colored. Her lips were a nude pink.

“Hello Simone,” Steve said, extending his hand, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“It’s an honor to meet you,” she said with such enthusiasm that she almost shook his arm off. “I can’t believe it—I just got my thesis back from my teachers and I literally _nailed_ it.”

“Congratulations.”

“Wait—here,” she dug through her shoulder bag and pulled up a clutch of papers, “I have it right here.” She handed it over and Steve couldn’t help but to notice the tremor in her hands, smiling at that as he took the essay.

“ _From Troy to New York: Ancient love in modern history_ ,” Steve read and looked up at her, smile halfcocked. “Interesting title.”

“I—uh, let me explain. It’s about the parallels between your relationship with James and Achilles’ relationship with Patroclus. I mean for example in the few SSR files that hit the internet a few years ago, there was a mission report signed and sealed by General Philips, it said that James picked—”

“—up the shield and deflected a shot that bounced him out of the hole torn in the cart wall,” Steve said as he watched her eyes widen. Shame, perhaps. “I know, I dictated the report.”

“It’s like when Patroclus donned Achilles’ armor and went into battle, it cost him his life and that in turn, forced Achilles’ hand. He stepped into battle still in mourning and—”

“—and then he died, too. Like everyone thought Captain America did when I crashed that plane into the Atlantic just a few weeks later.”

“Yes,” she said, a little breathless.

If he squinted, Steve saw the parallel, but he didn’t agree. They had been given a second chance at life, Achilles and Patroclus had not. In the same vein, Bucky hadn’t been his apprentice. In fact, it had been quite the opposite – Bucky had taught Steve all he knew; how to ride a bike, how to hotwire a car, how to throw a punch.

“I can see the parallel,” Steve flipped through the essay, “and I’m guessing there are more examples listed in here.”

“Tons,” she said, sounding proud, “and in more detail. Plus, it also focuses a lot on James and how his relationship with you led to the birth of the Captain America we know today.”

“About a minor character having a big impact, I get it.”

What would have happened if Bucky hadn’t been captured by Zola? Or worse, if he had died before Steve had ever set foot on the European front? Odds were that he would still be strutting around in tights and an itchy wool shirt if the events that came to pass hadn’t happened; that Captain America wouldn’t be more than a poster boy and a case study if everything hadn’t befallen Bucky.

Change one small detail and what comes after would be forever altered. If they had both stayed, if Bucky got a 4F stamp just like Steve, what would have happened to them then? If Bucky hadn’t come back when he did two years ago, what would have happened in that factory last summer?

People had been quick on condemning Bucky. Fallen war hero turned terrorist; and as with all things surrounding the media, after the events at the Triskelion things had just snowballed into something bigger and meaner. The Smithsonian had even pulled their Cap exhibit because of the now inaccurate portrayal of Bucky and everyone wrote articles, carried out debates, made documentaries about what he had become and not on who he was – who he _still_ was. Not a terrorist, not a murderer, but a soldier surviving the war. He was more than just the gun in his hand; he was Steve’s best friend, guardian, sanity and by the sound of it, this essay tapped into that.

“Can I get a copy of this? Would you mind?” Steve asked as he looked up from the essay.

“Oh! I’d love to give you a copy, there—there’s a print shop just down the street, I could swing by there really quick while you wrap up whatever you’re doing.”

“Thank you,” Steve said and smiled, “I’ll meet you there.”

 

* * *

 

“Can I ask you something?” Simone asked as they stood by the counter, waiting for the clerk to finish up the copy.

“Go ahead.”

“How did it feel to meet him again?”

“Wow,” Steve flashed a smile and shrugged stiffly, because he hadn’t expected someone to bring out the big guns just like that. “I don’t know. I mean... Growing up as sick as I was, I never thought I’d outlive Bucky,” he said, the words just coming to him, passing unfiltered, “so when he fell from that train, I had never pictured a world without him and that—that was hard.”

It had felt like the end of the world. Even back then he had taken Bucky for granted; thought that he would always be there even through the war because Bucky was young and talented and an expert marksman, he was seasoned and Steve’s friend, so why would he fall from a train and die? When it came to Bucky, it had never crossed Steve’s mind that it wasn’t just skill and balls that mattered in the line of duty, but luck, too.

“But he came back,” Simone prompted, her smile equally gentle as her voice.

“But he came back.” Steve sighed and he couldn’t quite look at her, the intensity of her stare had him bow his head. “And when he did… I don’t know, but it felt like the universe was trying to tell me something.”

There was no God willing, no scientist cunning enough that could bring back the dead.

And yet, Bucky was alive. What was that if not some kind of sign? When Steve first awoke after all those years in the ice, it felt like he’d waited for something. Before, it was for the war to end and even though the Allies had scraped through and waved the flag of victory long before he came back to life, the feeling had remained. The sense of being trapped in a holding pattern had only cut him loose when he’d met Bucky again on his kitchen floor, all feverish and broken down.

“What would you say to him if you met him again?”

Steve looked up at her and beamed, because this one was easy. “That we are in the future—a dollar today will get us a cheeseburger while it got us over a week’s rent back then and that flying cars still aren’t a big deal here just yet and,” he narrowed his eyes, smile weaning, “I don’t know—I’d tell him a lot of things.”

“What’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

Like a bolt out of the blue, Steve thought about the card. “I’m sorry,” he answered evenly, “I’d tell him that.”

She smiled a pitiful smile like she was sorry, too. “Why sorry?” she asked gently. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“For not being quick enough—” _to get it_ , “—maybe if I reached a little longer or a little faster, maybe things would be different today.”

Maybe they would both be alive and white with age. Maybe they would lie in their respective graves, resting peacefully next to each other. The thought of the latter was almost serene. How easy things would have been if whatever otherworldly force that brought them together had been a little kinder.

“Your copy is done,” said the clerk from behind the desk and whatever Simone was about to say was left unsaid. Despite her protests, Steve paid for the copy and signed the original upon her request while she scribbled down her phone number on his. Afterwards, they took a picture together, shook hands one last time and said their goodbyes.

 

* * *

 

“How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

Sam exhaled harshly through his nose. “I mean; how do you _really_ feel?”

Steve looked up from his desk and met Sam’s scrutinizing gaze from where he stood in the doorway; beneath the surface was the same quiet anger Steve saw in Natasha. An impatience he hadn’t seen in either of them before – or at least, he had never been the recipient of their targeted frustration.

“Good.” Steve couldn’t look at him when he spoke and for a long moment, all he heard was the muffled steps of Sam walking closer, the low scratching sound of the chair being pulled out and the heavy sigh as he sat down.

Sam started talking when Steve looked up at him again after a small eternity, his stare burning straight through. “You know,” he said gravely, “we’ve all given you a lot of room to maneuver ever since everything went down last year, have you adjust to being back to how you once were.”

“I know,” Steve said. Bucky was the only one that had gotten under his skin by not giving him space. The others had just cut off after the automatic _I’m fine_ response, which had felt good at the time.

“But maybe that was a mistake.”

Steve became acutely aware of the quick _thumpthumpthump_ in his ears, the sound of him gulping down. He thought about all the hours Bucky and Sam had spent together in the gym. They picked on each other like siblings, gave each other a hard time about almost everything and Steve knew Sam kept asking when Bucky would reimburse him with a brand-new Lamborghini after what had happened to his poor Toyota back on the bridge. In turn, Bucky fired back in equal measure about how he couldn’t even beat a soon to be hundred-year-old in a 10K race.

“Have you talked to Bucky?” Steve asked.

“I have,” Sam said.

“What did he tell you?”

“Enough.”

Steve bowed his head, the heat creeping up his cheeks, the cold sweat breaking out. “So you know what I said.”

“I’m not here because of that,” Sam countered and something in him mellowed, softening the frown on his face, “I’m just here to say that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you talked to someone. From what Bucky told me and from what I’ve managed to piece together, you haven’t been doing so well this year and that’s fine, we all have our ups and downs, but you can’t take it out on Bucky.”

“How is he?”

Sam shook his head like he didn’t know what to say and sighed. “He punched one of Stark’s robots through the wall this morning.”

Steve thought about that happening; thought about how angry and frustrated and _hurt_ Bucky must be to do something like that.

Steve sat back like a sack of potatoes in his seat, shoulders drooping as his chest ached so profoundly that he could feel the nausea bubbling up his throat.

“But you shouldn’t focus on Bucky,” Sam insisted, dragging Steve from the deep hole he was plummeting through, “you need to think about yourself for a second, you should—”

“—talk to someone, I heard you.”

“Good,” Sam echoed and for a second, Steve thought that they were done—that Sam would get up and leave Steve alone to wallow in his own misery, but then he looked at the stack of reports to the left and Steve could trail his gaze and—“Is this for Bucky?”

Sam reached for the half-open card on top, the frown returning with the same intensity as before as he opened it up. Steve felt as if his cheeks would come melting right off because maybe the card was too much; maybe he should have just picked up one from the store.

It took everything and then some for Steve to nod.

Sam looked sorry as he shut the card, checked the back and then put it back where it belonged. “It’s a nice gesture, but I don’t know how much it’ll change because what you said—”

“—I thought you weren’t here to talk about that,” Steve said, voice wavering and there was that pressure again, locking his throat painfully tight.

Sam raised his hands. “I’m not, just let me finish. What I mean to say is that what you said hit hard and I don’t think a card and a t-shirt will change how things are between the two of you—I’m not saying you _shouldn’t_ give it to him, I’m just saying that maybe you should wait. Take a pause, give each other some room to breathe.”

Steve’s heart skipped a beat. “Is that what he said?” he asked, breathless.

“That you two were having a pause? Yeah.”

Steve couldn’t make the ends meet. They were in the future, together against all odds and it wasn’t like back in the days, when Bucky would flinch back one day when Steve reached out and Bucky would cock his head to the side, arch his back a little straighter and smile like he was embarrassed, _let’s pause this a little, alright?_

But things _were_ different and Steve had fully committed—perhaps not to the idea of them getting a house and starting a family, but that they would be together and that it wouldn’t be like back then; when Bucky wanted to slow things down whenever he found a new pretty skirt to chase around town, only to come back like a boomerang when he was either bored or heartbroken.

Knowing that Bucky was in such an ill position today that he simply couldn’t go out and fall in love with someone else had eased Steve’s heart in a way he was too ashamed to admit. But then there was that nurse with the long legs and blond curls that Bucky would almost twist his own head off to keep looking at whenever she walked by or how he would smile brighter than ever to that redhead who administered his weekly vitamin booster.

Steve’s heart hurt by every beat. Before everything, their relationship had been fine. Steve had felt safe in confiding in Bucky about everything and their sex life had been—good. Not that Steve had a wide berth of reference points, but Bucky had never seemed displeased or unhappy whenever they got together; didn’t compare it to that time back during the war when he jumped into bed with the two nurses, which felt like a merit in its own heart twisting way. But perhaps that was one of those things Bucky simply didn’t remember and perhaps that was worse—

“You wanna talk about it?”

Sam’s voice cut through the cotton between his ears.

“No,” Steve echoed.

“You want me to set you up with someone?” Sam asked.

Steve shook his head and forced up a smile. “I’m fine.”

Sam sat back, sagging in his seat. “You’re really not.”

“I can take care of my own problems.”

“You don’t have to,” Sam argued. “I’m here for you, remember that. I didn’t mean to put you up against the wall by coming here, I’m just watching out for you and Bucky.”

“I know.” They hadn’t talked in a while. At least, not like this. Sam was probably in the gym just as much as Bucky these days and beyond that he still volunteered at a veteran center in the village not far from here and… it wouldn’t be right to drag him down, too. “I think I need to be alone, can you please leave?”

 

* * *

 

Steve told himself a lot of things.

He told himself that he only slept on Bucky’s side of the bed because the light from the bedside lamp didn’t reflect on the TV screen if he laid there, not that the maids still hadn’t changed the bedding and that he could still smell the cedar notes of Bucky’s shampoo on the pillow. That he wanted to watch Interstellar, Alien, Wall-E, the Martian, Event Horizon all on his own volition and not because he was alone, not because the bed was too big and the room too quiet.

He told himself that this was just a stint, a bump on the road and that Bucky was only doing what he had been doing—not communicating and that was fine; that this was what he deserved for being so heartless.

He told himself that them taking a break was fine. It didn’t have to be like back in the days, but then Steve saw him chatting up the blond nurse with the lanky legs in the corridor and then suddenly he felt the same crushing sense of abandonment. Because when he saw Bucky, he was himself again. Calm, gentle, happy – doing fine just without him.

And that killed him. When he wandered into the kitchen later that day and saw Bucky by the table with Wanda, helping her figure out her homework for the week, Bucky was all smiles and sunshine. There wasn’t a hard edge on his face when he looked at her.

Steve found himself jealous. He was jealous of Wanda who got to spend time with him, who sat close and made him smile by merely rolling her eyes at the textbook. Even later, when he stumbled across Bucky and Natasha in the kitchen the same night, the two of them mumbling in Russian, Steve discovered that he was jealous of her, too. When she stood close, hand on his elbow and thumb rubbing gently over a ridge in the metal.

It was impossible to not be angry at himself. Steve had pushed and pushed for this and now when he finally had succeeded, he felt even more miserable. Like he had just reached the end of the line, only to discover that there wasn’t anything waiting for him there.

A week after Bucky’s birthday and Steve wasn’t sure when he last slept. He was wound up, depleted to the core and there was nothing he wished for more in the world than for Bucky to just _look_ at him so they could talk; so, that Bucky could see just how damn sorry he was.

But Bucky ignored him in the hallway, in the kitchen, in the living room. It was like he could tell by just the footsteps when Steve walked into a room and didn’t even bat an eyelash in his direction. There weren’t enough words to describe how much Steve wanted to apologize, but at the same time he didn’t want to cry in front of Bucky because it felt like that would make everything a hundred times worse and how could he even begin to say sorry, when he could barely keep it together when they were in the same room?

Because that was what Steve felt like doing right now, crying because Bucky was right _there_ , in the same conference room looking heartbreakingly good in that famous red, white and blue. His hair was pulled back, chin and cheek clean shaven and he was looking at Steve.

For the first time since their fight, he was looking straight at him.

And it wasn’t the kind of look Steve had ever imagined. Not even the night itself could color Bucky’s eyes darker than they already were; his jaw so tight that it looked like it might break any second. Never had he felt like this beneath Bucky’s gaze: reduced to nothing. Small and unimportant, like he was wasting his breath by just opening his mouth.

“Is this going to take long?” Bucky asked.

Steve’s heart skipped a beat, mouth falling open. “I—no,” he looked down at his papers, his shaking hands fumbling with the mission plan, head going wild with the idea that Bucky probably _heard_ how much he was freaking out, the frantic pounding racing in his own ears, “yes—or I—I,” _I’m going to cry, “_ just want to talk ab—about rendezvous points after, uh—”

Bucky gave a short humming sound and then he looked away, down to the gauntlets resting on the table and it felt like Steve just blew his shot. His one chance to tell Bucky how he felt.

“Can we—”

“—no.” Bucky glared at him. “Let’s keep this about work, alright?”

It was painful to hear how much he meant it. The dark, razor sharp edge of a cold Steve had never experienced from Bucky; an impatience that almost turned deadly. Like it took everything in him not to say something that he would regret.

Steve nodded stiffly, mouth hanging loose on its hinges—the sorry dangling on the tip of his tongue like the tears clinging to his lashes. He held his breath like he was underwater, because he couldn’t cry in front of Bucky, not with Tony and Rhodey just outside in the corridor still arguing about repulsors and range and—this might be his only shot at making a dent in that hard exterior that betrayed nothing.

“I didn’t—” Steve bit his lip, forcing himself to breathe through his nose, the words were right _there_ like the tears and it wasn’t meant to go down like this: in a conference room ten minutes before the meeting was about to start.

“I don’t care what you’re about to say,” Bucky said and—and everything blanked. The fear, the guilt, the shame, the anxiety – everything that screamed and hurt in his head and chest, died down for one skipping heartbeat.

And then everything welled up again, unstoppable and wrecking and _thank God_ Bucky wasn’t looking at him.

How—why— _when_ did he stop caring? How could Bucky, who had said that he wanted a future with him, not care? Steve had been too angry, too busy to entertain the thought of them getting a nice house and the more he thought about it, the more he remembered how Bucky had been ready for that life even before the war. In their time, being twenty-five and unwed wasn’t exactly unheard of, but it wasn’t usual either and Bucky had been hellbent on marrying the first decent lady that would have him whenever he got back from the war.

And now when he was finally home, perhaps Bucky’s vision for them wasn’t that bad. It might be a million miles away with the law sniffing after his tail, but they had lawyers that were doing everything they could to build a case so that when the day came and Bucky wanted to go public, there would be enough of a defense that they wouldn’t strap him in the electric chair.

It was a nice dream, to grow old together.

But this was an end and Steve felt the shame burning his cheeks for ever thinking that things would be fine.

It wasn’t. It wouldn’t be.

And the only one he had to blame, was himself.

He breathed hard through his teeth and backed away, left the conference room and passed by Tony and Rhodey with the flying excuse that he felt sick, which wasn’t a lie.

 

* * *

 

Steve thought about getting help.

After yesterday he realized that he shouldn’t feel this constant, propelling urge to cry whenever he saw Bucky. It wasn’t healthy and it sure as hell wasn’t normal, and Steve desperately wanted that—to be normal, to feel something that was familiar.

It was hard to not get emotional about that. Because everything had changed—was still changing and he couldn’t stop thinking about how much he wanted to freeze time so he could stop and think and fix things. It was the last thing on his mind before he went to sleep and it was the first thing he thought about whenever he woke up, that everything and everyone was still moving forward even if he wasn’t.

And perhaps that was the problem. Steve had always thought about what everyone else was doing. This last year had been nothing but a sour fixation on Bucky and what he did.

But that was just the thing, if Steve was wrapped around someone else, he didn’t have the time to think about how small and sick and useless he truly was. He was like the leftover piece in an already completed puzzle and that stirred up a panic within him he would never get used to.

He remembered the Smiths’ daughter who had lived on the floor above him and the cool summer day when they had dragged her away kicking and screaming after she had started ripping the hair off her head, shouting profanities through the top floor window at the pedestrians below, yelling about the voices in her head.

Just like the demons in her head, it was all in Steve’s. The pain he felt in his chest wasn’t real, because if it was, he would have been dead long ago. The anxiety that sunk like a stone in his stomach and triggered his heart into beating a thousand miles per hour whenever he saw Bucky chat with the blond nurse, wasn’t rational.

In the end, Steve did a few online searches despite feeling the shame bubbling up by merely typing _therapy New York_ into the search bar. He could go through Dr. Cho and have her set him up with someone, he could even go back to Sam and ask for help, but he didn’t want that; didn’t want anyone to know that he was too weak to get over it on his own.

Just having the number thinly scribbled on the back of his sketchbook felt like a defeat. He thought of what he would say when someone picked up; how he would express himself and explain what was wrong; thought of what they would think of him.

Steve shoved it all to the back of his mind as he scrolled through the contact list, found the right number and pressed call. It rang once, twice, thrice—

_“—Steve?”_

“Hi Peggy,” he sat up straighter against the headboard, the sketch pad sliding off his lap and onto the floor, “how’s London?”

 _“Oh you know, rainy,”_ she said with that certain warmth in her voice that sounded like she was smiling. Her smile had always been something else, even in her old age and he missed her; missed visiting her. After her kids and grandkids had decided to move back to the other side of the pond, she had naturally wanted to do the same thing, so they had coordinated a move shortly after everything that had happened with the takedown of SHIELD. Steve hadn’t seen her since.

“You said the same thing when I called you last time,” Steve said and it was hard not to smile, too. “It can’t always rain.”

_“Hah—no it cannot. What time is it over there?”_

“Almost midnight.”

 _“You’re up late,”_ she paused and when she spoke again, her worry bled through _, “is everything alright?”_

The pause ruined his chance at lying. “… no,” Steve said, “not really.”

_“Do you want to talk about it?”_

Every fiber, every cell in Steve wanted to say _yes_ , _please_. He wanted to tell her everything he had kept from her these last two years: about Bucky and how he had started over, just like she had said that he should; about how he had fucked it all up.

But Peggy was old and sick. It wouldn’t be fair to weigh her down, just like it wasn’t fair to encumber Sam or anyone else with his problems.

Steve pinched his nose and let out a long held breath. “Right now I think I just need to acknowledge it.”

 _“Whatever it is, it’s going to be fine. Not everyone can be super all the time,”_ she said gently.

Steve huffed a breath and smiled despite it. “Not sure I’m all that super anymore.”

 _“You don’t have to be,”_ she said and her voice was all warm again. _“Why don’t you come visit this summer? Speaking on the phone like this makes me forget sometimes that you’re actually back.”_

He thought about blaming work; thought that it wasn’t as easy as jumping on a plane and go over there. But it _was_ easy – there wasn’t anything that kept him back. What he did could someone else easily do because it was paperwork. Read, sign, pass it off to the next guy in line and the more he thought about it, the worse the gaping pit in his stomach felt.

“I think I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Steve said, clearing his throat. “Paperwork, you know?”


End file.
